Drought for Kids
Drought for Kids” from the National Drought Mitigation Center gives an overview of drought – the science, the impacts, and what people can do to prepare for drought. An excellent resource for students, parents and teachers to learn more about the mitigation of drought, the development of drought, and the impact of drought on producers, communities, and individuals.
Kim Cassel
Has the earth moved beneath your feet lately? When I checked the USGS site this week, there were 935 earthquakes recorded for the past eight days in the 48 conterminous states, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Those earthquakes in the conterminous (great word!) states occurred from California to Massachusetts.
The 2012 Great ShakeOuts begin in February with the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut. On February 7, more than one million people will participate in the ShakeOut. Other states, British Columbia, Guam, and New Zealand will hold their ShakeOut events later in the year. Regardless of when the event is held, all have a common message. When you feel that first jolt, immediately Drop, Cover and Hold On.
What can you do to help your communities?
As the year comes to a close, many of us begin to think about our plans for the upcoming year. In my home state, Extension educators and specialists are working on their plans of work for 2012, deciding what they’ll be offering to clients; when and where they will provide face-to-face and virtual workshops; and how they will engage in social media and incorporate related and cross-programmatic education into their curricula.
We know that disasters affect people in rural and urban areas. Disasters have impact on families, individuals, businesses and governments. Disaster education should be addressed in all Extension program areas. What types of Extension work can be considered disaster education? Here are a few ideas.
If you work with small businesses, you may help them develop a continuity of operations or an emergency operations plan or you may help them develop employee training that includes an evacuation plan [planning and preparedness]. EDEN’s ReadyBusiness is designed for you to teach small businesses how to prepare for disaster.
If you work with families on financial planning, you probably already talk to them about insurance, savings, and other strategies that are helpful in disaster recovery. The Family Financial Disaster Toolkit is an excellent resource to use in those conversations. (Look for the non-state specific version if you’re not in MN or ND.)
If you work with producers, you may help them develop a succession plan. Much of what goes into succession planning is also part of a continuity of operations plan. Or perhaps you consult with producers about premise security or biosecurity. These can be part of a mitigation or preparedness plan. See EDEN’s Animal Agrosecurity and Emergency Management and Plant Biosecurity Management courses.
Are you recruiting local feed and seed operations to the Animal Health Network? This can be considered planning, preparedness, response (if the network is activated), or mitigation (strengthening communications network).
Are you helping communities reestablish their landscapes following tornadoes, hurricanes, straight-line winds, or wildfires? Are you teaching individuals about right trees/right locations? That’s recovery and/or mitigation.
Do you coordinate or facilitate 4-H or youth clubs? They may be interested in weather or mapping projects. Depending on the direction such projects take, you might incorporate education about what to do in case of a ______ [preparedness] or how to map local evacuation routes [planning], which could then be distributed to targeted audiences/neighborhoods [preparedness]. Youth can also be involved in community projects that help disaster victims recover or community mitigation projects such as establishing green spaces.
How are you planning to incorporate disaster education in your 2012 work?
USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has published the 2011 Smith Lever Extension Special Needs Competitive Grants Program request for applications (RFA). Submissions are due via e-grants by 5:00 pm on May 23rd, 2011.
Here is some key language from the RFA:
Proposals are welcomed that add new or build upon existing web-based educational materials on the Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) at http://www.eden.lsu.edu/. This platform is ideal for staff development. Also, disaster preparedness and mitigation proposals intended for end users that contribute’s to and expand upon the current offerings of the Agrosecurity and Floods eXtension Community of Practice will be considered http://www.extension.org/disasters. It is recommended that applicants contact the EDEN executive committee and/or the appropriate community of practice during proposal formulation to solicit support and guidance. The most competitive proposals will provide educational and communication leadership across an optimized mix of these and other resources (emphasis added).
The RFA also discusses providing “regional/national education and communications leadership to develop or add value to current educational materials regarding disaster issues” in another part of the RFA. EDEN can point to several successful examples of teams who, rather than authoring a single product, developed a portfolio of products (an EDEN issue page, eXtension resources, a regular list-serve update presence) and provide ongoing communications leadership to serve the changing needs of multiple audiences.
Eligibility is limited to 1862 Land-Grant institutions. However, when appropriate, NIFA encourages collaboration with the 1890 and 1994 Land-Grant Universities.
I urge you to read the entire RFA before planning your project. As the request indicates, early contact with and support by the EDEN executive committee and/or the eXtension Community of Practice may strengthen your proposal. The best contacts for this purpose are Virginia Morgan (EDEN Chair) or Rick Atterberry (EDEN Chair-elect).
Best, Bill Hoffman – USDA/NIFA
Damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima facility resulted in elevated radiation levels near the power plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Most recently, questions from the United States have focused on the safety of food imported from Japan. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have answered the call for information. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) have also issued food safety statements.
A few answers from the FDA
What food products come to the US from Japan?
Foods imported from Japan make up less than 4 percent of foods imported from all sources. The most common food products imported from Japan include seafood, snack foods and processed fruits and vegetables. Dairy products make up only one-tenth of one percent of all FDA-regulated products imported from Japan.
Is there any reason for concern about radiation from these products when they are imported into the US?
There are no concerns for products that were already in transit when the explosion occurred at the reactor. Right now, due to the damage to the Japanese infrastructure, FDA believes export activity is severely limited. FDA is monitoring all import records for Japan to determine when importation will resume.
How does the FDA protect the US food supply?
There are more than 900 investigators and 450 analysts in FDA’s Foods program who conduct inspections and
FDA microbiologist
collect and analyze product samples. The FDA oversees the importation of regulated products, including food and animal feed, among other responsibilities. The Agency carries out targeted (those that may pose a significant public health threat) risk-based analyses of imports at points of entry. Although FDA doesn’t physically inspect every product, the Agency electronically screens 100 percent of imported food products before they reach our borders.
What are the current procedures for measuring radiation contamination in food?
FDA has procedures and laboratory techniques for measuring radionuclide levels in food, and can also use the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN). FERN integrates the nation’s food-testing laboratories at the local, state and federal levels into a network that is able to respond to emergencies involving biological, chemical or radiological contamination of food. FDA is working with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to share resources and techniques for measuring contamination. FDA and other domestic regulatory labs have validated analytical methods to detect radiological contamination in food.
How will the radiation affect fish and seafood that have not yet been fished or harvested?
The quantity of water in the Pacific Ocean is great enough to rapidly and effectively dilute radioactive material, so fish and seafood are likely to be unaffected. However, FDA is taking all steps to evaluate and measure any contamination in fish presented for import into the US.
Related EDEN page: Nuclear Release
One day you were minding your own business when a colleague came along and talked you into becoming an EDEN delegate. It sounded really good at the time, but now you may wonder how disaster education can be incorporated into your work.
Here are six actions you can take to help reduce the impact of disaster on your communities.
Regards, Virginia Morgan, EDEN Chair
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