Tag: University Farm

University Farm director brings global perspective

Orellana's priorities: water, technology, community engagement
by Ken Smith | Posted April 5, 2024

photo by Ken Smith
Ricardo Orellana brings a global perspective to his role as the Chico State University farm director.

Ricardo Orellana grew up against the backdrop of a 12-year civil war in his native El Salvador, but his childhood memories are thankfully dominated by more peaceful recollections — namely, of working with the cows at his grandmother’s farm outside the small town of Usulutá.

“It wasn’t a large farm, just five or six acres with about 25 milking cows and a few other animals,” Orellana said during a recent interview. “She also grew cassavas, tomatoes, beans and corn. It was very rural, and how I fell in love with agriculture.” read more

Chico State takes the reins in regenerative agriculture

Tiny microbes can help addresses climate change - if we stop killing them
by Richard Roth | Posted July 26, 2019

courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Thomas Jefferson’s improved mouldboard plow.

When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they applied their mouldboard plows to the prairies, to soils that were rich, dark and black. That soil was steaming with mineral and organic carbon — with soil life so small it was invisible to the human naked (unmicroscoped) eye and, hence, to our consciousness. So we ripped into them with gusto, mining this flesh of earth.

The settler-farmers killed the microbes by exposing them to sunlight, erosion, heat and dryness, and they planted monocrops – a single crop like wheat. Or corn. Or walnuts. read more