San Rafael, CA – The Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis is to bestow a major award on alumnus David Lewis, the Marin County Farm Advisor and the UC Cooperative Extension director for Marin County.
David Lewis, shown during a 2014 Board of Supervisors meeting, has been with the County since 2009.Lewis, who has led his Novato-based department since 2009, will be honored with the Eric Bradford and Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award at a ceremony April 19 at UC Davis’ International House.
For 17 years, Lewis has served as a UC Cooperative Extension advisor, helping farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and other stakeholders solve challenging and contentious issues surrounding the health of their watersheds.
The Bradford Rominger award honors individuals who exhibit the leadership, work ethic and integrity epitomized by the late Eric Bradford, a livestock geneticist who gave 50 years of service to UC Davis, and the late Charlie Rominger, a fifth-generation Yolo County farmer and land preservationist.
Lewis joined UCCE as its first watershed advisor after starting his work in sustainability with the Peace Corps in the African nation of Niger and completing a geology/earth science degree from Carleton College in Minnesota and a master's degree in international agricultural development at UC Davis.
Lewis' accomplishments include helping to reduce the dairy pollution hurting the oyster beds of Tomales Bay and helping ranchers reduce erosion on their property, letting them play a key role in conserving critical coho salmon habitat and protecting the water quality of North Coast rivers. He is a watershed advisor for the entire North Bay region.
"Marin County and places like it have placed a value on open working landscapes, and made land-use policies 40 years ago to protect them,” Lewis said. “As we face new challenges, whether it's a new invasive weed or where solar panels can go, we can always go back to that shared value."
For Lewis, many of those successes stem from an eagerness to hear and understand the needs of community members, something he considers a privilege of his job.
"When talking with people at their kitchen tables or at the gates at their ranches,” he said, “I get to feel the deep knowledge and connection people have with the landscape, hear their family histories and desires to innovate and do something different. And I appreciate that I've got a small role in it somewhere."