Tag Archives: UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Your Land Grant Partner

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February 2025 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angleBy J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

 

At UF/IFAS we’re making another investment in artificial intelligence (AI) to support Florida farmers. It’s not a machine. It’s a dean.

I can’t think of anyone who has devoted more time and thought to preparing the future workforce for an AI-driven world than Kati Migliaccio. That’s a big part of why I chose her to be the first new dean of the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) in a decade.

Dean Migliaccio (far right) takes a moment to celebrate the groundbreaking for the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering W.W. Glenn Teaching Building, a modern makerspace and hands-on mechanical workshop paired with an engineering design space, bringing together students majoring in biological engineering and agricultural operations management. We refer to the groundbreaking in the column.

As AI in Florida agriculture evolves, Migliaccio will reshape the education of the people who will work in it, some of them in jobs that don’t even exist yet.

In fact, she’s been doing it for years already. She led the group that developed a university-wide plan to ensure all students have access to opportunities to acquire AI knowledge and skills.

Migliaccio is an engineer and brings that problem-solving mindset to complex challenges. During her six years as chair of the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) she championed a holistic approach to innovation, encouraging teams to consider how individual problems and solutions interact and contribute to the bigger picture, rather than addressing each issue in isolation.

She has also marshalled the expertise of other UF colleges, especially the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, to seek solutions to agricultural challenges.

As dean, her focus on AI-related instruction will also now benefit students in departments such as Family, Youth and Community Sciences or Food Science and Human Nutrition.

Her engineer’s focus on practical solutions to real-world problems has helped drive a campaign to build a new workshop for ABE. We held a groundbreaking in the fall to kick off construction of the facility. When it’s done, it will be a hub for hands-on learning, where students can learn to use tools and develop technological prototypes you’ll be using as the AI-literate corps of graduates begin working for and with you.

She has also emerged as a leader in standing up agricultural technology workforce development programs statewide through our state college partners.

Engineers like Migliaccio also share an ethic of striving for continuous improvement and experimentation. That’s what has kept her department near the top for so long. At a university with lots of engineering departments, ABE ranks by far the highest, perennially in the top 10 nationally.

Migliaccio brings this ethic to her new job. CALS is already one of the top schools in the nation. To become the best, we need someone who never stops trying to improve things.

Migliaccio demonstrates and fosters the culture of excellence I seek across all UF/IFAS. With few peers matching our level of distinction nationally, a culture of excellence will help us compete with ourselves—striving to be better this year than last. To do more for our farmers and ranchers and foresters and fishers, as well as those who manage our natural resources.

A culture of excellence supports students with a world-class education, combining great instruction with practical experiences like internships. CALS will continue to produce graduates ready for work, advanced studies or service.

Those graduates will be ready to help you help Florida feed the world.

J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).

 

 

 

 

Your Land Grant Partner

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December 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angleBy J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

Four Florida Farm Bureau leaders at October’s annual meeting gave me four different ways of thinking about how much agriculture does for the people lucky enough or wise enough to make it their livelihood.

I sat with each of the four-state board executive officers individually in between sessions in Miramar Beach. They were four very different discussions that demonstrated to me the multiple perspectives your leadership team brings to serving as champions for Florida agriculture.

President Jeb Smith and I talked about agriculture as a potential career that can provide meaning and purpose to young people searching for both. I was briefing President Smith on UF/IFAS efforts to develop training in agricultural technology. Beyond that individual initiative, we agree that agriculture is a way for people to feel they’re doing good while they’re doing well.

To Michael Dooner, agriculture is a way to protect the earth. As a forestry leader, your immediate past treasurer champions the benefits of agriculture to filter and produce abundant clean water and air, sequester carbon, and harbor wildlife. He wants to see producers recognized and compensated for what they contribute to society, not just what they produce.

Clay Archey, who was re-elected as your board secretary at the annual meeting, took time to meet with me and talk about how agriculture gives veterans a new opportunity for service after leaving the military. His family’s support for scholarships for veterans studying in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences demonstrates a way to recognize the value of the experience of our military personnel and channel it into another form of national security – food self-sufficiency.

Vice President Steve Johnson talked about agriculture’s values in connecting multiple generations of family. For three dollars per acre, his great granddaddy bought land in 1937 that the Johnson family is still farming in Manatee County. Steve hopes his son will someday take over the family business – but that his son will first attend the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and then get a few years of experience away from the Johnson farm.

Together these conversations reminded me of what a jewel agriculture is. Each conversation was like turning that jewel ever so slightly and appreciating the glint of each facet.

Agriculture is a business. My job is to help producers make money. But that’s not the whole story.

As you know, agriculture delivers far more benefits that food, feed, fuel and fiber. It’s an important way to knit families together, reinforce national security, fuel the economy, foster a lifestyle and keep parts of Florida green even as we see the land use map changing before our eyes.

Agriculture needs to speak with a unified voice. I heard that voice at the annual meeting from Jeb, Steve, Michael and Clay. Yet each does so in individual ways to create a fuller picture of the industry we love. And I look forward to amplifying that voice year-round.

Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).

 

Your Land Grant Partner

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October 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter
dr angle
By J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

Agricultural land disappearing. A new expressway cutting through pastures. A generation of youth who need to learn where their food comes from.

Sound familiar? It’s what UF/IFAS Clay County Extension Director Annie Wallau and Clay County Farm Bureau President Gayward Hendry are facing as they work together to promote local agriculture.

On the strength of Hendry’s nomination highlighting Wallau’s efforts to teach Clay County’s next generation about the role farms and farmers play in their community and economy, she will be honored at this month’s annual meeting as the Florida Farm Bureau Extension Professional of the Year.

Wallau has been a leader in educating youth about agriculture, food, health, and nutrition.

When the pandemic shut down the county fair, it stopped the popular AgVentures® station-to-station hands-on projects to teach students where their food comes from.

Wallau worked with Clay County Farm Bureau and Clay County Fair Association on the idea of bringing the lessons to the students. The field trip in a box was born.

UF/IFAS and Clay County Farm Bureau packed and delivered the boxes with lesson plans and hands-on activity supplies on forestry, beekeeping, gardening, and beef, including the game Beef-o Bingo that gives students a fun way to learn about the many by-products of the beef industry that we find in our everyday lives.

And Annie worked to create Story Walk, which engaged students in ag literacy and physical activity by posting pages from a book on Florida agriculture throughout schools grounds, giving teachers the opportunity to take their students outdoors to walk and read.

(Left to Right) Greg Harden, Florida Farm Bureau District 5 Field Representative; Annie Wallau, County Extension Director – UF/IFAS Extension Clay County; Gayward Hendry, Clay County Farm Bureau President

Wallau has partnered with Farm Bureau to organize the Farm-City week luncheon that brings together Clay County’s civic and agricultural communities. She even hosted it at the Extension office until the event was so successful that it outgrew the space.

In addition to making Clay County a place to grow food, she is working to grow leaders. When Wallau met 4-Her Cross Middleton five years ago, she saw in him a future agriculturalist. She talked to him about careers in Extension, and she met with him frequently at her office to counsel him on selecting a college major at UF compatible with his learning style, background and career goals.

Cross graduated from the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences in May, and Wallau has continued to advise him on how to engage with Farm Bureau. Cross now leads the county’s Young Farmers & Ranchers chapter and serves on the county board. Cross and Wallau are now working together to try to bring a new farmers market to Clay County.

My thanks go to President Hendry and Administrative Assistant Terri Davis of the Clay County Farm Bureau for nominating Annie. Thank you, too, to President Jeb Smith for personally informing Annie with a call that she said absolutely blindsided her in the best way.

Extension professional of the year is one of the highest honors an agent can earn because of who it comes from. Our decades-old partnership has great value to us, and when Farm Bureau elevates an agent, it is meaningful to our entire organization.

J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).

 

 

 

Revised Ag Water Rule Finalized by the FDA

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September 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a final rule that revises pre-harvest agricultural water provisions in the FSMA Produce Safety Rule. The rule replaces the previous microbial quality criteria and testing requirements with systems-based, pre-harvest agricultural water assessments.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) is committed to providing support for farms that may be affected by this rule change.

It is highly encouraged that all fruit and vegetable producers take advantage of the produce safety training opportunities provided in partnership with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF-IFAS) and FDACS. FDACS Food Safety Training Calendar can be found here.

Under the revised rule, covered farms using pre-harvest agricultural water for covered produce must conduct annual agricultural water assessments and assess factors such as water source, distribution system, protection from contamination sources, application methods, time interval between water application and harvest, crop characteristics, environmental conditions, and other relevant factors.

Based on the assessments, farms must determine if corrective or mitigation measures are necessary to minimize contamination risks. Prompt action is required for hazards related to animal activity, biological soil amendments of animal origin (BSAAOs), or untreated/improperly treated human waste. Mitigation measures should be implemented as soon as practicable for other hazards, or testing may be conducted.

The final rule also requires supervisory review of the written assessment and determinations made. Covered farms may be exempt from assessments if they meet specific requirements for their pre-harvest agricultural water.

Compliance dates for the pre-harvest agricultural water provisions are as follows: Large farms: 9 months after the effective date (April 7, 2025), Small farms: 1 year, 9 months after the effective date (April 6, 2026), Very small farms: 2 years, 9 months after the effective date (April 5, 2027).

FDACS is available to help assess Produce Safety Rule compliance, including the new ag water requirements, on your farm with a free On-Farm Readiness Review. To request an on-site readiness review, click here.

If you have any questions, call 863-578-1900, email Kirby Quam, or visit www.FDACS.gov/FSMA.

Additional Resources:
FSMA Final Rule on Pre-Harvest Agricultural Water | FDA

Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption