As a graduate student in the UC Cooperative Extension Program, Kripa Jagannathan has the opportunity to supplement her research at ERG with outreach to California farmers and water utilities officials. Her goal is to evaluate the usability of climate science for adaptation planning in agriculture and water management. This week, the Berkeley Food Institute highlighted Kripa’s work, alongside ESPM PhD student Aidee Guzman.
“For Kripa, research and extension are not separate pursuits. Through interviews, focus group discussions, and workshops with California almond farmers and water utilities officials, she set out to understand the types of climate information that practitioners need, and whether current scientific research is meeting those needs. Kripa learned that almond growers have in fact experienced changes in climate over the past few decades, yet current climate projection tools don’t address crop-specific climate information such as future changes in chill hours and frost patterns. After receiving this feedback she started another project to evaluate how well climate models are able to predict chill hours. She is working with Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the California USDA Climate Hub on further research to develop these decision-relevant tools.”
Read the full post here.