IID asked to double funding for Farm Smart program
HOLTVILLE — The Imperial Irrigation District is being asked to increase its monetary contributions to the University of California’s Farm Smart program by as much as 100 percent over the next several years.
During an informational-only presentation Monday — meaning the Board of Directors could not vote on the issue — the director of the University of California’s Desert Research and Extension Center, Jairo N. Diaz, Ph.D., came before the IID board to discuss the funding request.
IID now supports the DREC’s Farm Smart program to the tune of $50,000 a year from the IID’s water department budget, and has done so since 2004, when a National Science Foundation Grant that previously funded the program ran out. Farm Smart was born of the grant in 2001.
Diaz is asking IID to increase its support in 2018-19 to $75,000; to $90,000 in 2019-20; and $100,000 in 2020-21 and beyond.
Farm Smart, the outreach component of DREC, reaches 8,000 to 10,000 participants each year through K-12 field trips to the farm, winter farm tours and community outreach.
The program is meant to raise awareness, educate the public and provide outreach on several issues such as healthy eating and lifestyles, natural resources conservation, cultural and intergenerational connections, sustainable agriculture, environmental education and career opportunities in food, agriculture and sciences, according to a previous DREC-penned article.
“These are really diverse programs; we target kids and adults, and we bring kids to our center every day,” Diaz told the board Monday. “Kids can learn where their food is coming from, they can learn about water and natural resources in the county.”
Diaz said DREC in Holtville is the oldest research center in the university system at more than 100 years old.
“We want to move forward this vision to reach out to more of our community,” Diaz said, adding DREC wants to keep it programs at the lowest costs possible to schoolchildren and members of the community.
DREC is moving forward with plans to build out its infrastructure, including developing a nutrition demonstration kitchen facility and learning center building through what appears to be a separate funding effort. The assistance from IID would come in the form of additional programming.
“DREC is working on developing a conservation garden with different educational features, including water conservation, native plants, mulch exhibit, lawn alternatives, composting and vegetable garden that will help improve water, energy and food practices for Imperial Valley residents and visitors,” Diaz wrote in a letter to the IID board.
He added in the letter the IID request “will allow us to reach out to more communities in the region, begin the planning stages for our facility projects and develop and implement new educational events on site.”
Diaz wrote that DREC is looking to phase in its funding request over several years to allow for expansion at a moderate growth rate and to plan for multi-year program improvements.
Board members Norma Sierra Galindo, Bruche Kuhn and Juanita Salas all weighed in on the request.
Galindo, who said she lives near the DREC in Holtville, was very supportive of the Farm Smart program. She said that if IID entertains a funding increase request, she would ask that the program engage with food programs at high schools such as Calexico High, where she works, and with the senior population.
Galindo clarified that she would like to see local seniors targeted, and not just the continued catering to snowbirds. “Senior day care would benefit from this type of activity. Many have worked in farms and the fields, so it would be a nice coming home for them,” she said.
Kuhn, whose wife is a school teacher, told Diaz that he and his wife were supportive of the program, but that he was not a fan of the drastic increase in funding. In his usual folksy turn of phrase, Kuhn said, “I like it, but I don’t like it that damn good.”
Diaz said he realizes it’s a lot, but that DREC is getting ready to make capital investments of a couple million dollars with the construction of a 300,000-square-foot building.
Salas wanted to know if this was a gifting of public funds, a leftover from earlier discussions in the meeting where the Imperial Valley Joint Chambers of Commerce were denied a funding request for that very reason. Salas was told no, that it had been decided long ago there was educational and scientific value in supporting the Farm Smart program.
The funding request will be formalized as an action item on the agenda in two weeks.