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CapitalPress.com
January 29, 2016
Extension educator keys on sustainability
Carlo Moreno
helps conventional
and organic
farmers thrive
using fewer inputs
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
University of Idaho Ex-
tension Educator Carlo
Moreno has worked in far-
flung parts of the world in
the last 10 years, experienc-
ing agricultural challenges
that have fueled his passion
for sustainability on the
farm.
“Safe food should be
made available to all people
who need it; lowering the
cost makes it accessible,” he
said.
Sustainable production
helps decrease the cost by re-
ducing inputs, and in small-
scale operations it tends to
increase yields, he said.
Sustainability has been
the focus of his work —
from the salad bowl of the
world in California to the
impoverished Mexico-Texas
border region and subsis-
tence farming high in the
northern Andes Mountains
of South America.
“I like the idea of going
into communities, seeing
what their problems are and
working together to solve
them,” he said.
A couple of things he’d
like to do in his current role
with the university is ex-
plore cover crops for weed
and pest management and
work with organic growers,
even though some stigma is
associated with organic pro-
duction and could present a
bit of a challenge, he said.
“Like politics, there’s a
risk of alienation. But you
don’t necessarily have to be
organic to be sustainable,”
he said.
He wants to assist organ-
ic and conventional grow-
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
University of Idaho Extension
Educator Carlo Moreno exam-
ines plants.
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
University of Idaho Extension Educator Carlo Moreno looks up from examining plants during a Nov. 4 cover crop tour hosted by soil and
water conservation districts near Burley.
Carlo Moreno
Age: 36
Title: University of Idaho cereal crops Extension educator, Minido-
ka County
Degrees: Ph.D. in Environmental Studies with a focus on
agro-ecology, University of California-Santa Cruz; master’s degree
in entomology, University of Maryland; bachelor’s degree in biology,
San Jose State University
ers alike and help empower
farmers to experiment to
find out what works in their
operations, he said.
Moreno’s path to agricul-
ture began with his interest
in insects. He never really
thought there was a career
in insects — a notion his
parents reinforced — so he
started studying biology at
San Jose State University.
While there, he was help-
ing out a graduate student
with a project looking at the
influence of annual flower-
ing strips on the biological
control of aphids in broccoli
fields in the Salinas Valley.
The project exposed him
to agriculture and integrat-
ed pest management and
opened his eyes to career op-
portunities.
The New York native
went on to study entomology
Balanced
Energy Solutions
while pursuing his master’s
degree at the University of
Maryland.
Pursuing a Ph.D. in en-
vironmental studies with a
focus on agro-ecology took
him to the northern Andes in
Venezuela where he worked
with peasant farmers to break
down barriers to production.
Trying to grow enough
food to feed themselves, the
farmers had switched from
native potato varieties to
higher-yielding varieties. But
those varieties proved sus-
ceptible to invasive pests. His
work there was to understand
how traditional practices
could contribute to manage-
ment of the invasive potato
pest, the Guatemalan potato
moth, as well as to local farm-
er livelihoods.
“I learned that native pota-
toes are not only more resis-
tant to damage from this inva-
sive potato moth pest, but that
they also indirectly help farm-
ers build their social capital
and diversify their livelihood
sources,” he said.
He worked with an innova-
tive farmer who had a strategy
to intercrop the native variety
with the non-native varieties.
It worked, but the other farm-
ers had resisted the strategy,
Moreno said.
“Like anything else, it’s
hard to change people’s
minds,” he said.
Returning from South
America,
Moreno
did
post-doctoral work with the
University of Texas-Rio
Grande Valley through a grant
from the National Science
Foundation to help boost or-
ganic production in the Rio
Grande Valley of south Texas.
His focus was to address
the major barriers facing mi-
grant farmers along the Tex-
as-Mexico border, one of the
poorest areas in the U.S.
The area was steeped in
agriculture and is a major
supplier of winter vegetables
to the U.S. Farmers there
were dealing with serious
pest and weed problems, and
his work was mostly directed
at organic practices to man-
age the challenges.
He sees the opportunity
to work in Idaho as a chance
to improve his skill set and a
challenge to take what he’s
used in small-scale produc-
tion and work with a differ-
ent set of people to promote
an interest in sustainable ag-
riculture, he said.
He teamed up with the
Northwest Center for Alter-
natives to Pesticides for the
recent Organic 101 workshop
in Twin Falls, at which he
hoped to identify obstacles
faced by organic producers
with the goal of developing
research and extension pro-
grams to help, he said.
He started on July 1 and is
still getting his feet wet, but
said Idaho is beautiful and
the job is “fantastic.”
“Everyone has been very
welcoming, nice and open to
the idea of trying things dif-
ferently, to differing degrees.
I’ve met some really inspi-
rational people and farmers,
in what they’re willing to do
and the challenges they’ve
faced in doing it,” he said.
This story first appeared
on Nov. 20, 2015.
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