The expansion ramps up efforts to vaccinate BIPOC residents in Yolo County

As of Feb. 15, Yolo County has expanded its COVID-19 vaccination efforts to include frontline workers. This expansion will include individuals who work in childcare, education, emergency services and the food and agriculture industry. Eligible individuals can register on the county’s vaccine page or by calling 2-1-1. 

Yolo County Public Information Officer Jenny Tan explained that expanding vaccination coverage to frontline workers makes vaccines available to a greater number of nonwhite residents. 

“Now that this county has expanded to frontline workers in education, food and agriculture, childcare and emergency services, we should definitely see an uptick of non-white indiduals getting vaccinated,” Tan said via email. “For example, we have around 7,000-8,000 agricultural workers in Yolo County who are predominantly Hispanic.” 

In order to ensure vaccine accessibility, Tan explained that in addition to offering private clinics, Yolo County has been making advertisements about vaccines in Spanish and Russian. 

“We have Spanish radio and digital advertisements, Russian radio and Facebook advertisements, billboards, and [have] even sent postcards in English and Spanish to our Knights Landing area,” Tan said via email. “We’ve vaccinated around 1,000 of our agricultural workers so far and we’re making sure to rotate between cities and areas.” 

Tan explained that frontline workers are especially important as they provide essential services for Yolo County residents. 

“They are the ones ensuring we have food on the table, responding to emergency needs and teaching our children,” Tan said via email. “Our agriculture industry is especially important as our county has deep roots in agriculture and farming.” 

Although the expansion of vaccine coverage to individuals in these crucial sectors will increase the number of vaccinated individuals in Yolo County, individual fears about the safety of the vaccine pose a threat to eventually reaching herd immunity. 

Brad Pollock, a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine, Arline Miller Rolkin Chair in Public Health Science and associate dean for Public Health Sciences at UC Davis, leads the UC Davis Public Health Sciences department. He explained the importance of confronting misinformation surrounding the vaccine. 

“Vaccine hesitancy is a real concern in trying to end the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pollock said via email. “There is a lot of misinformation out there. As more and more individuals get safely vaccinated (by the millions) it is possible that some of the fear may abate, but it is important to get as many individuals vaccinated as quickly as possible.”

Pollock explained that residents who have yet to receive the vaccine can help the vaccine rollout by continuing to practice preventative measures. 

“Remain vigilant and practice all of the known public health preventive measures  including wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance, practicing good hygiene and getting tested on a frequent basis,” Pollock said via email. “These are good practices to keep even after you get vaccinated.” 

Associate Superintendent of Support Services for the Davis Joint Unified School District (DJUSD) Laura Juanitas explained that the Yolo County vaccine distribution expansion is a step forward in the DJUSD’s plans for reopening. 

“We know that preschool to grade 12 are important years in a student’s education,” Juanitas said. “We’ve been doing a very good job with distance learning, but we know how valuable in-person learning is. We want to [return] in a safe way.”

Juanitas further explained that vaccines and a return to in-person learning is beneficial for both school staff and parents. 

“We’ve seen through the course of the pandemic that age is a factor in how ill people can get, so it’s important to keep our school staff as safe as possible,” Juanitas said. “It also benefits the economy when the schools are open. Not everyone can work from home. This has been a hard year for many families.”

Juanitas explained that reopening schools is a top priority for DJUSD at this time. 

“Just like parents and students, we want to reopen as soon as possible and as soon as it’s safe and we can get all the adults vaccinated,” Juanitas said. “That way, we can get the kids back in school.” 

Written by: Yan Yan Hustis Hayes — city@theaggie.org

Scholarship donor wants to help alleviate financial burdens for college students

Sacramento Region Community Foundation currently offers dozens of scholarship opportunities, including the Yolo Community Foundation’s scholarships. Each individual scholarship—most of which are due in March—has its own eligibility criteria, but they are generally offered to high school seniors or college students.

Executive Director of Yolo Community Foundation Jessica Hubbard explained that the organization and the community have been working to respond to economic challenges presented by COVID-19.

“A few issues that have really risen to the top in Yolo County include food insecurity, housing insecurity and mental health,” Hubbard said. “In addition, there are a lot of challenges for nonprofits about their own sustainability.”

Hubbard discussed the importance of providing students with scholarship opportunities, especially during the pandemic. She explained how college has always been expensive in the U.S., but it has never been more expensive than it is today.

“Giving students an opportunity to attend college and the resources that will help them do so is really important to make college accessible to a wider group of people,” Hubbard said.

The Yolo Youth Scholarship Award, which is due on March 12, typically requires high school seniors to volunteer 60 hours for a single nonprofit. Yolo Community Foundation understands that many students face volunteer restrictions due to COVID-19, and Hubbard describes how the requirements have been adjusted in light of this.

“We’ve changed the criteria to be 60 hours, but it’s okay if that was across multiple nonprofits,” Hubbard said.

Scholarships from the Yolo Community Foundation’s partners at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation open in December and are generally due in early March, but the time frames may change each year, according to Hubbard. Students can check the Sacramento Region Community Foundation website, which also provides a grid of the 2021 Scholarship Application criteria. 

Roy and Cynthia Kroener are donors behind the Yolo Community Foundation’s Roy and Cynthia Kroener Family Scholarship. Applicants must be a Davis high school senior. 

Roy Kroener explained that he and his wife are active in local communities. 

“The scholarship is a way of us trying to give back to the town,” Roy Kroener said. 

The couple have been offering this scholarship annually for seven years. The average award total is around $4,000, but may vary depending on the chosen applicant’s level of need.

“We awarded $4,000 all the years except one,” Roy Kroener said. “One person wanted to go to junior college. Their cost was significantly less; that individual we’ve ordered $3,000 to. If we ever see someone that has really special needs, we might go up to as high as $5,000.”

Roy Kroener said that he understands from experience that college is costly.

“Our son went to UC Davis and graduated 15 years ago,” Roy Kroener said. “We budgeted roughly $15,000 a year for his college education. It’s doubled now. It’s a challenge for families. We see students with large debt, and we just feel like it’s a small part that we can do to help.”

Today, the 2020-2021 Estimated Undergraduate Cost of Attendance for UC Davis students who reside in California and live on campus is $37,652. 

Roy Kroener advised student applicants to make sure that they fill out all of the requested information for a scholarship.

“Make sure to double check that you’re providing all the information in question,” Roy Kroener said.

Roy Kroener explained that it is obvious that some applicants put more time and thought into the essay portion than others. 

“We really do look hard at the essay we asked them to write,” Roy Kroener said.

On top of scholarships to support students during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Yolo Community Foundation is currently running a panel series on community needs associated with the pandemic. 

Hubbard explained that the March 4 panel addressed food insecurity. 

“This week is food insecurity,” Hubbard said. “Future weeks include mental health, housing security and where we go from here.”
Written by: Ellie Lee — city@theaggie.org

 New biopesticide performing well in Midwest field trials on corn and soybeans

On Feb. 8, Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI), a Davis-based biopesticide company, announced that its new product Pacesetter has performed well in 2020 field trials in the Midwest. 

The MBI Midwest Territory Business Manager Brad Paschen explained that Pacesetter, an Organic Materials Review Institute-certified biopesticide, is intended to improve plant health and crop vigor.

“Pacesetter’s performed really, really well and grower demonstration trials have reached six plus bushels more of corn, and three plus bushels more of soybeans, so that gave us a really strong return on investment for both crops,” Paschen said. “We saw a bigger, more consistent ear size on corn, and we saw a wider leaf surface and longer leaves three to four weeks after application.”

Paschen went on to elaborate that some of the trials were grower demonstration trials and some were done by a third-party company paid by MBI.

“Some of the studies that were done, our replicated trials, were done by third-party, independent researchers—we paid them to do the research,” Paschen said. “And then we also did 60 plus grower demo trials.”

Pacesetter is a product intended to be used along with conventional fungicides, according to Paschen, a combination he described as a “synergy.” Paschen elaborated on the concept of grower demonstration trials.

“We go to individual farmers, and we give them the product to test on the farm. We put a 50-acre block which is applied with Pacesetter, versus a 50 acre block that has just a fungicide-only program,” Paschen said. “Pacesetter is applied with a regular fungicide, so we compare a fungicide to Pacesetter with a fungicide.”

Paschen stated that Pacesetter is MBI’s first product that targets row crops, which include corn and soybeans. Previously, it has focused on specialty crops, which include fruits, vegetables, walnuts and almonds.

“This is really Marrone Bio’s first expansion into the row crop market,” Paschen said. “We’re basically building a new market in the Midwest; this is new territory for Marrone Bio. We’ve sold some products there before, but this is the first time that we’ve put that much focus on it and had products that were specifically put in place for corn and soybeans, which are two of the largest acre crops in the United States. There’s 90 million acres of corn, and there are 75-80 million acres of soybeans. Combined, it’s a lot of acres.” 

The active ingredient in Pacesetter is an extract of the giant knotweed, Reynoutria sachalinensis. This extract works by activating a plant’s natural defenses, including by stimulating salicylic acid production, which helps the plant resist abiotic stresses and increases yield by making the plants bigger and healthier.

In the field trials, Pacesetter has also helped plants survive drought conditions, in which they usually would “shut down,” Paschen explained.

“One thing that the Pacesetter trials have shown is that you’ve got better plant health, and we take away some of those abiotic stresses,” Paschen said. “That results in bigger, more consistent ears in corn—the kernels are deeper, and there are more kernels on each row of the corn. [Pacesetter-treated] soybeans have more pods. When it gets really hot, soybean plants sometimes abort the pods because they can’t hold onto all of them, and there’s just too much stress on the plant. Having more kernels on the corn and more pods on the beans means higher yields.”

Following these successes, MBI plans to turn its eye toward testing the product on other types of staple crops, according to Paschen. 

“We’ve had really good success in corn and soybeans, and we’re also going to be testing the product in cereal grains like wheat. We’ll be doing more cotton trials this year as well. Cotton is another target crop—cotton, rice and wheat.” 
Written by: Rachel Shey — city@theaggie.org