In 2006, the Salinas Valley was the source of a food-bourne illness outbreak; salmonella was discovered in spinach from Salinas, shipped throughout the United States, triggering a national recall of the product. Diana Stuart (Ph.D. 2009) was then a graduate student in UC Santa Cruz's Environmental Studies program.
She researched farming practices in-place in the Salinas Valley, discovering conflicts between growers' efforts to produce a "safe" product and wildlife conservation efforts. Her research on "sterile farming," and the work of other scientists in agricultural practices, was highlighted in A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2012 in Trends In Ecology and Evolution (Sutherland W.J. et al, 2011).
The article lists 15 issues that the authors believe are key areas for conservation research in the new year. The authors state that "[t]he objectives of horizon scanning are to anticipate issues, accumulate reliable data and knowledge about them, and thus inform policy making and implementation." They specify that the field of 15 issues was whittled from a larger group selected by "at least 253 people." The article appears in Volume 27, Issue 1 of Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Dr. Stuart is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University.
