Students for Sustainable Agriculture

SSA Meeting Minutes - Monday, Nov. 30th

2009-12-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

Monday night's SSA meeting included announcements about the Stand Up Against Methyl Iodide march in Sacramento. Also, guest Brandon Louie discussed his work with the Children in the Fields project. Finally, SSA discussed the Real Food Challenge at UC Davis.

Minutes from Monday, November 30th meeting.

Olive Harvest 2009

2009-11-30T09:50:00.000-08:00

Students for Sustainable agriculture hosted their annual olive pick this last weekend. With permission from both the UCD Olive Center and Grounds, students, faculty, and alumni harvested olives on campus last Sunday in a joint effort to produce olives for oil. This year the crew of over 50 people harvested a total of 3,326.5 pounds of olives. The organizers and volunteers carted the raw olives to Mike Madison's farm, Yolo Bulb, in Woodland, where he used his small scale industrial olive press to make the oil. Grand total: 47.5 gallons of oil, which was happily distributed via a serve yourself olive oil stand behind one organizers' house. And as we've picked up our share, and patiently wait for the oil to settle, we're already looking forward to next year!

SSA Meeting Minutes

2009-11-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

Check out the minutes from the Monday, Nov. 16th Students for Sustainable Agriculture meeting.

Keepin it REAL FOOD Week Wrap Up!

2009-06-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

Keepin' it REAL FOOD Week! rocked the Davis campus last week. We added over 15 people to our listserv, raffled off several of our cookbooks, and shared some real food loving.

The Dine with Dignity campaign and movie screening was excellent and highly attended. The screening concluded with a live conversation for a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida and great live music.

The Real Food taste-testing went great. Everyone loved the Zucchini and Sesame salad made from fresh zucchini from the student farm.

King Corn was great - especially all the yummy popcorn that was grown on the Student Farm.

There was a rocking solar cooking demo on the West Quad - Katie Cooper and Solarising helped to educate the community on using the power of the sun to cook food!

Finally, Keepin' it REAL FOOD Week wrapped up with a Student Farm get-together where we shared some amazingly REAL food, including several dishes cooked in the solar ovens earlier that day, and a beautifully made-from-scratch cherry pie with Coco Ranch cherries.

Check out some of the pictures from the event below...

Dine with Diginity - Immokalee: From Slavery to Freedom screening

Getting ready to talk to the CIW member in Immokalee, FL over skype.

Students and community members at the CIW Dine with Dignity film screening.

Liz Fitzgerald, engaging the group of students and community members in a discussion
about farm-worker rights and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers campaign.

Natalie Yahr, from Local Dirt on KDVS 90.3FM, recording the conversation with the CIW member.

Maggie Lickter and Katie Cooper handing out free seeds and a sampling of zucchini
sesame salad made from fresh organic zucchini from the Student Farm.

Katie Cooper showing off our 100 Ways to Eat Fresh! Eat Local cookbook.

We handed out seasonal availability charts, free seeds, and zucchini salad.

Maggie, engaging some students in a conversation about what "Real Food" means.

Maggie Lickter, Dani Lee, and Katie Cooper working the taste-testing table at the Coffee House.

Katie Copper, pitting Coco Ranch cherries on the quad for a home-made fresh cherry pie.

Katie Cooper, teaching a student about solar cooking.

Katie Cooper and the solar cooking demo in the East Quad.

Meeting Notes from 5.19.09

2009-05-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to see the full notes from the May 19th meeting!!

Keepin it REAL FOOD Week!

2009-05-19T10:49:00.001-07:00

Join Students for Sustainable Agriculture in celebrating...

Keepin it REAL FOOD Week!
May 26th-29th, 2009

Working together towards educating the campus community in a more
socially just and ecologically balanced approach to our food system.

Dine with Dignity Campaign -Movie Screening
Tuesday, May 26th - 5:45-7:00pm
Immokalee: From Slavery to Freedom
Live conversation with a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
UC Davis Coffee House - Southwest Dining Room
Free popcorn from the Student Farm…

Take the REAL FOOD taste test!
Wednesday, May 27th - 11am-1pm
UC Davis Coffee House – outside of the hot food area

King Corn Movie Screening
Thursday, May 28th - 7:30pm
UC Davis Coffee House - Southwest Dining Room
Free popcorn from the Student Farm…

Solar Cooking Demonstration
Friday, May 29th - 12:00-2:00pm
UC Davis West QUAD

Student Farm Get-Together
Friday, May 29th - 7:00pm
UC Davis Student Farm
Click here for a map to the Student Farm

Immokalee Workers Educational Display
Hart Hall Flash! Exhibit Foyer
Weeklong event
Will be displayed through summer

Please see attached fliers...

Brought to you by:

Co-Sponsors:
ASUCD Coffee House
UC Davis Student Farm
UC Davis Agriculture Sustainability Institute
UC Davis Chicano Studies 50 Students

SSA Meeting on Cinco de Mayo!

2009-05-08T19:57:00.000-07:00

SSA had a great meeting on Cinco de Mayo!

We covered a lot of topics, including information on a possible FORAGING GARDEN at UC Davis!! After that we discussed Keepin' it Real Food Week and the events we have planned for that. We have all been working so hard to organize these events, and it is going to be a GREAT week! The dates are set for May 25-29th, and will include a CoHo taste test, green-smoothie demo, and much more! To read the meeting notes from this meeting, click HERE!

To read a draft of the foraging Garden, click HERE!

SSA Meeting - Minutes from 4.28.09

2009-04-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

Greetings Sustainable Aggies!

Students for Sustainable Agriculture met last night to recap on several activities that have happened in the past couple of weeks and also to talk about upcoming events. Thank you to Katie for taking notes.

We also got a new couch for the office - thank you Ryan!

Maggie introduced the group to a new form of consensus decision making that she learned about while at the Food and Society Conference last week - it is called Fist to Five. SSA will be adopting this consensus voting procedure for meetings.

To read a summary of the minutes - check them out here.

Things are starting to come together for the annual Local Food Week - if you are interested in helping out with the planning, please contact Dani (or email sustainableag@gmail.com). Local Food Week/Celebrating Real Food Week will be May 26-28th this year. Mark your calendars!

The next SSA meeting will take place next week Tuesday, May 5th at 6:15pm at the Student Farm (exact location TBA)! The first half-hour we will be sharing a meal together, and in celebration of Cinco-de-Mayo, I suggest everyone bring a Cinco-de-Mayo themed food!

Please email Katie Cooper (kcooper@ucdavis.edu) any agenda items you may have.

East Quad Farmers Market is Back!

2009-04-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air, and it is time for celebration! Not only for the beautiful weather and the blossoming trees, but also for celebrating the start of the East Quad Farmers Market this spring quarter.

From their website:

"The East Quad Farmers Market (EQFM) at UC Davis is a successful collaboration that has increased access to fresh, local produce for busy UC Davis students, staff and faculty during fall and spring quarters. A 2007 survey of UC Davis students found that 60 percent eat two or fewer servings of nutrition-packed fruits and vegetables a day. By increasing access to fresh produce, we hope to make it easier for students, staff and faculty to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into their diet."

Each week, from 10:00am-2:30pm on Wednesdays from now until the end of the quarter, the East Quad at UC Davis is buzzing with students, local farmers and local producers. The Student Farm also sells their produce out at the market, so for those of you on their year-long wait list dying to have some of the tasty produce - check it out!

SSA members Maggie Lickter, Jennifer Heinlein and Katie Cooper at the
Students for Sustainable Agriculture Table at the East Quad Farmers Market - Weds. April 1, 2009

Students for Sustainable Agriculture tabled at the kickoff to the East Quad Farmers Market today. We support fresh food, a venue for the Student Farm to be known, and also access to healthy food for all too - so of course we welcomed the invitation to help promote the Farmers Market on campus.

Our "Cool Eating Tips Quiz" was given to students, staff and faculty that stopped by our table. In return for taking 1 minute to fill out the quiz, they were entered into a raffle for one of our SSA "100 Ways to Eat Fresh - Eat Local" seasonal cookbooks (.......did you know - our cookbooks are also available in the UC Davis Campus Bookstore!) We also distributed our "10 Cool Eating Tips" cards with seasonal availability charts for the Sacramento Valley Region.

What kinds of questions did we ask our participants?

How many tons of agricultural chemicals are used by California orange growers? (answer: 3000 tons)

How many miles does food travel on average?
(answer: 1500 miles)

An estimated how many plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year?
(answer: 380 billion bags, and it takes 1.6 billion gallons of petroleum to produce this many bags!)

What fractions of all the fossil fuels produced in the US are used to raise animals for food in factory farms?
(answer: 1/3 of fossil fuels in the US are used to raise animals for food)

Spreading the love of a socially just, ecologically balanced, and economically viable food system - one cool eating tips card at a time!

Students for Sustainable Agriculture

Meeting Minutes - 3.17.09

2009-03-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Saint Patrick's Day all!

SSA celebrated with a lot of delicious green food - fresh green salad, kiwis, avocados, green tea rice (email Katie for the recipe), and so much more!

The meeting tonight was pretty well attended even though it was finals week. We covered several upcoming activities, including the East Quad Farmers Market Kickoff event on Wednesday, April 1st! Yes, that is right, the EQFM is BACK!

SSA will also be participating in the Wellness Fair on Wednesday April 8th from 11am-2pm in the East Quad, during the EQFM.

Finally, Picnic Day is coming up soon - April 18th - and SSA will be doing an educational and information table on local food, the student farm and more. And the day after Picnic Day, we will be helping out with the Earth Day Sustainability Fair!

With all of these activities coming up soon be looking out for an announcement on the listserv for ways to participate.

Finally, we had guest speaker Allen Doyle, the newly hired Sustainability Manager here at UC Davis. Allen chatted with us about ways to increase our outreach and how we can really connect with the populations of people who don't ever have exposure to what we are trying to promote.

To read the minutes, please go here. All ACTION points are highlighted in yellow.

The first SSA meeting will be held the first full week of spring quarter back out at the Student Farm in our brand-new office! Be there, or be sad that you missed out on the christening ceremony! If you haven't already, please submit your availabilities for next quarter on our DOODLE. We will be sending an announcement soon as to what day of the week we will be meeting.

Farm-to-School Work Party

2009-03-11T22:42:00.001-07:00

Students for Sustainable Agriculture worked hard this weekend with Davis Farm-to-School connection and other volunteers at Harper Junior High School to help out with the school garden. We weeded garden beds, hoed around the fruit trees and planted some herbs for the kids and teachers to use in some of their educational projects.

After the work party, we shared a meal in true SSA tradition.

SSA will continue to work with the Davis Farm-to-School connection in the future. Keep an eye out for announcements for upcoming work-parties on the listserv.

To find out more about volunteering with the Davis Farm-to-School Connection or to be added to the email list for upcoming events (like work parties!) please contact Talia Hack-Davie at info(at)davisfarmtoschool.org.

Also, check out their website here.

SSA Meeting Minutes - 3.3.09

2009-03-04T11:38:00.001-08:00

Hi All!

The SSA meeting last night was packed full of some awesome stuff! To check out the meeting minutes, please go here.

We had guest John Li come and talk about the upcoming Davis Sustainability Festival and SSA's role in it. We had our ASUCD guest and contact, Bri, come and speak to SSA about how we can get our activities and events publicized through ASUCD.

This upcoming Saturday from 9am-12noon, SSA will be participating in a Davis Farm-to-School Connection garden work party at Harper Jr. High School - 4000 E. Covell Blvd. Carpooling will be happening! Meet at the MLC (433 Russell Blvd) at 8:45am for a ride!

We will be working on the SSA office space with Mark this weekend on Sunday - if you have time, come out and join us at 9am - there is lots of organizing and work to be done. =)

Look forward to a visioning session next quarter! We are going to get together and plan what we think we want to focus on as a group through the rest of the academic year, and starting next year as well.

Finally, don't forget about the upcoming SSA Sponsored trailer screening of the Last Crop, featuring local farmers Jeff and Annie Maine of Good Humus. It will be held next Tuesday at 6:30pm in Bowley Hall, immediately following the Alternatives in Ag seminar.

Thank you to Maggie who facilitated and Jen who was our note-taker. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 17th at 6:00pm in the Project Compost office. Please send agenda items to Jen at jlheinlein@ucdavis.edu.

SSA Meeting - Minutes from 2.17.09

2009-02-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hi All!

The SSA meeting went very well tonight. Thank you to our guest presenter, Kendra Johnson, an SSA alum who currently works with the California Farm Link. For more information about what amazing opportunities the California Farm Link has, please check out their website here.

Other items discussed included partnerships with a Davis High students, Maggie's experience at the California Student Sustainable Coalition's Strengthening the Roots convergence this past weekend, Local Food Week, SSA possibly getting office space, and much more.

To read the minutes from the meeting, please go here.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 3rd at 6:00pm in the Project Compost office in lower Freeborn Hall. We will be discussing the upcoming Local Food Week, further educational and activism opportunities, and having a guest from the Agricultural Sustainability Institute here at UC Davis.

If you have any agenda items, please forward them onto Victoria Lin at viclin@ucdavis.edu.

SSA in the California Aggie

2009-02-17T20:02:00.000-08:00

Students for Sustainable Agriculture was represented in the California Aggie in the guest opinion article. A few students from SSA gathered collectively to submit an opinion piece endorsing the upcoming Green Initiative Fund (or TGIF for short). Maggie Lickter and other SSA members were key in formulating the piece that was emailed to the Aggie staff, and published in Tuesday, February 17th's paper.

To see a copy of the article, go to http://californiaaggie.org/ and look in the right column for download-able archives.

Guest Opinion: Is TGIF right for you?
Students for Sustainable Agriculture
The California Aggie
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Fundamental questions about our responsibilities as students are being raised by the vote on The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF). After considering some of the complex questions surrounding TGIF, the UC Davis club, Students for Sustainable Agriculture, has decided to formally endorse TGIF. This article will address some of the bigger questions that we see as relevant to the TGIF discourse.

Is it my responsibility to pay money to support a green campus?
As active students of the UCD student body, we expect our school to represent our values and best interests. We choose to take responsibility to put our money where our mouths are and contribute to a campus that strives or sustainability.

How much money should we pay?
Well, four dollars per quarter sounds reasonable to us. We’re all feeling the pinch during this economic crisis, but we can still come together and pay $4 for something that brings real potential for change to UC Davis.

Who’s going to make sure that money is used effectively? Wouldn’t it be a waste if our money ended up going down the drain?
Of course. However, after reading the proposed management guidelines for TGIF, we feel confident that TGIF’s creators have built a structure that will manage the money democratically and efficiently.

What about the fate of other projects that I care about on campus?
With increasing budget cuts, people feel forced to prioritize and fight to secure funding for their preferred projects. However, funding for campus positions, programs and projects is not a zero sum game. TGIF will not take away funding from any another existing programs.

That being said, our only critique of TGIF is that it should include more emphasis on campus social justice issues.

However, this is not ground for dismissing TGIF. In fact, what we see as a lack of attention to social justice can be addressed by proposing projects that address sustainability and justice simultaneously! TGIF has major implications for our school’s reputation and longevity during a time of major environmental problems. Installing solar panels or low flush toilets may not appear to be a top priority, but their implementation is an important step towards reducing our use of coal and water, two limited resources that are being rapidly depleted - and for four bucks, it’s worth it.

Who benefits from TGIF?
We all do. Ecological adversity affects everyone. World wide, environmental degradation disproportionately affects people of low socio-economic status, women, and children. Having such a wildly destructive ecological footprint is elitist and we have a global responsibility
to mitigate our effects. Let’s get real with ourselves - we are incredibly fortunate and privileged to have access to this University. Let’s make sure that we use that privilege wisely to benefit ourselves, our communities, and future generations.

Additionally, as UCD students we particularly benefit from the passage of this initiative. This fund is asking us to realize our own possibility. It funds student projects! Anyone can apply, anyone can create change! That means you!

Do I care?
That’s for you to decide. If apathy and self imposed ignorance haven’t yet killed our student body’s will to create the change they want to see in their world, then vote. That’s all, just vote. Vote yes or vote no, but make your voice heard this election on February 18-19th.

In conclusion, we think that with mutual cooperation, TGIF will become a force for sustainable and socially just change on campus. TGIF has the potential to communicate our agency. Students for Sustainable Agriculture supports TGIF and its creators in working to better the campus we all represent.

Feb 10th Meeting Notes

2009-02-11T21:49:00.000-08:00

The first SSA meeting after the extremely successful Citrus Gleaning was last night! The meeting turnout was great, and we covered a lot of agenda items, including a brainstorm for making the citrus gleaning permanent!! Check out the meeting notes HERE!

Maggie Lickter speaks at National Sodexo Sustainability Conference

2009-02-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

February 2-4, Sodexo, the multibilliondollar international food service management and facilities management corporation, hosted a sustainability conference here at UC Davis. The conference was the SEED Conference - Sustainability and Environmental Expert Development. The conference included a group of Sodexo managers and corporate leaders from across the nation.

Maggie Lickter, a second year majoring in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, represented Students for Sustainable Agriculture, the Real Food Challenge, the California Student Sustainability Coalition, and university students across the nation. The panel included a look into UC Davis' best practices when it comes to sustainability and environmental stewardship. Maggie's piece of the panel was educational and eye-opening for many of the members. Focusing on topics such as supporting local farms, social justice and labor issues, profit versus people, corporate transparency and more, Maggie did a great job telling Sodexo where it can make the biggest impact in affecting our food system.

Gail Feenstra, food analyst for the UC Davis Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, also spoke at the SEED conference about the Davis Farm-to-School connection.

SSA Meeting - January 20th, 2009

2009-01-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Inauguration all!

The SSA Meeting went very well.

We had a guest speaker - Tom Tomich, who was representing the Agriculture Sustainability Institute (ASI) for short. Tom has been the ASI director for two years. Several students have representative positions on several of ASI's boards (both internal and external). We are toying with the idea of starting a student advisory committee, for more information, check out the minutes.

SSA will be hosting a film soon about the Good Humas Land Trust project. More news on that soon.

Maggie Lickter will be the student representative for the upcoming Sodexo Sustainability Conference, to be hosted here at UC Davis on February 2-4th. If you want your voice heard, contact her with feedback, input: molickter@ucdavis.edu

The 2nd annual Citrus Gleaning Bike Tour will be held on Saturday, February 7th at 12noon. Meet at the Davis Food CoOp parking lot! Bring your bikes, carts, baskets, trailers, citrus picking devices (ski poles work well too!). For more information, contact Christie McCullen: cgmccullen@ucdavis.edu

Students for Sustainable Agriculture will be joining forces with the UC Davis Student Nutrition Association to help out with the Davis Farm-to-School Connection. We will be participating as a group in a work day on Saturday, March 7th. More information to come soon.

The Green Initiative Fund is looking for help to get signatures in order to get the initiative on this upcoming ballot. To find out more about TGIF and how to help, go to TGIF's Website.

Go here for the minutes from the last meeting: Minutes - January 20, 2009

Next meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 3rd at 6:00pm in the Project Compost office in Lower Freeborn Hall. Please email Jennifer Heinlein agenda items: jlheinlein@ucdavis.edu

SSA Meeting - January 6th, 2009

2009-01-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

Thank you to all who came out to the first SSA meeting of the new year and quarter!

We had some good laughs, good food from campus and all over Davis, and new members too!

To read the minutes from the meeting, please go here.

Thanks, all, and see you at the next meeting!

Meeting Notes 12/2/08

2008-12-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

SSA meeting 12.2.08
Role call: Amber, Liz, Paige, Lenin, Jen, Katie, Maggie

Olive Harvest:
- good
- olive oil is ready
- what to change? Competitive attitude, make sure that people know to bring ladders
Eco-Farm
- 8 scholarships for $100
- Applications coming soon, due in early January, stay posted
Slow Food on Campus
- need students to sign for contract either Wednesday or Thursday, no commitments just approval of club
- lets make Slow Food and SSA work together, Amber and Katie can be liasons between two clubs so that both groups know what’s going on
DC Meetings with Brennan and Linda
- they need an SSA student representative to attend planning meetings for the Oxford Circle DC bc it is going under renovation becoming the sustainable (menu planning, student activist, compost, any inputs)
- Liz and Jenn interested
- Conferences around country = “Strengthening the Roots”  one in San Diego in Februrary
- Allen Doyle= new sustainability manager coming to next DC meeting, come to SSA meeting too
- Farm to college in Spring lots of fun ideas (farmers market on site- use swipes, milking, ag activities, bands- have students talk between acts, what you can do now that you are moving out handout, including social justice issues, **growing seedlings and giving away herbs and veggies- plant around March and use project compost)
- UCOP food group Statewide phone conference once a month need SSA representative there  Liz interested
- Two CSSC food reps from state  Briand Seaby from Davis
- Collaborating with other clubs (project compost, R4…
- Dani and Sarah are working to have DC allow CoHo to use their post-consumer machine lets support them bc they need it
- ASI external meeting next week, Maggie and Katie going to dinner, lots of big time people networking and workshopping- How ASI is going to do its stuff
- Could we have someone from ASI come talk and explain ASI?
Popcorn  what to do with it?
- how much is not shucked?
- Food bank
- We could sell it
- Can we freeze it? How long will it last?
TGIF CSSC is starting this, Lauren Jabusch is student leader
- we want to be involved
- they need individuals
- send out to list serve if you want to get involved
- tabling and educating
- goal to have it voted on in next ASUCD election- need a lot of voter turnout
Environmental club tabling event
- do we want to be there?
- No good experience in past, but if someone wants to go for it
Gmail account
- We have one!
- Dani is going to check it regularly
- Maybe have it forwarded to Paige
Blog:
- Amber is going to keep it updated
- Posting meeting notes and updates
UC Davis site
- we need to change some stuff on it, how do we do that?  ask Creative media, amber
- Keep gmail account on there
- Add blog site
Obama Letter
- use forum to post your topics
- ask CRD students if they want to be involved, maybe read over what we have written
- everyone get your stuff up by Dec. 20
- comment on the others by Jan 1
- then we will review it all and
Outreach
- lets ramp it up!
- Have events on central campus
- Should we change where we meet? Would more people come if we were central- we could use PC office (bottom of freeborn)
- We will use the PC office
Action items
- Maggie: contact Brennan about Liz and Jenn
- Maggie: give Liz’s name to Brian,UCOP
- Paige: contact Dani about how much popcorn
- Paige: working calendar on blogger
- Maggie/Katie: ask ASI person to come talk to us about ASI
- Paige: contact Lauren that we are interested in TGIF
- Amber: update blog and contact Creative Media
- Katie: Send email out to obama action group to add your platform issues on forum
- Maggie: make doodle for time slots for next quarter meetings
- Katie: email obama group about deadlines
Future Agenda Items
- Allen Doyle
- Popcorn
- Sending obama letter
- Citrus glean
- Seedlings for college night

SSA Summary

2008-12-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

Click here to view the SSA summary that Dani and Maggie put together for ASI.

Meeting Notes 11/11/08

2008-12-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

Taste test of Squash:
- Red Squash (?) – 2; 3; doesn't like it; good with savory seasoning
- Butternut – 2; second sweetest; good for soup; easiest to peel; 2; 2
- Delicatta – 1; sweetest; 4; 1
- Buttercup – 3; starchier; 1; taste like yams/sweet potatoes; pie; 3

Olive Harvest – Alida
Sunday before Thanksgiving: Sunday, November 23rd
Time: TBA – 9am tentatively
- Bring a picnic lunch
- Check for stuff in olives (bolts, etc.)
- Mike Madison will be pressing our olives
- We will be doing it by weight again – Alida will be checking in with Rick about the scales
- We need: carts, barrels, buckets, ladders, etc.
- Mike will be donating bins for the day to use to
- Danielle – Ask Tim to borrow Experimental College Garden Ladder
- We are planning on picking in the same area as last year – to the west of the UC Davis Airport
- Alida and Rainbow will be sending out a "save the date" to the listserve soon (like tomorrow?)

Scripps (Community Currency) – Nico (niko.barry@gmail.com) and Rainbow
- How does a community currency work? – a lot of people and groups and people in Davis are interested in supporting a local economy; the name is pretty self explanatory – this is a currency that you print out specifically for your community; it is totally legal
- Why have a community currency if we have a currency already? – dollars are used typically for car payments, rent, etc.; don't necessary want to spend it on things that support a local currency; with community currency people are able to spend their community currency towards community goods
- How does it work? – Pay $10 each month and get $2 community currency – post goods/services on a board (internet, bulletin board); exchange of goods and services using only the local scrip. The people spend the currency pretty quickly so it circulates well and supports a healthy economy
- Ithaca Hours? – community currency system in New York;
- Ideas for buying services/goods: Training, buying tools, all people who buy the scrip are sharholders in what to spend the money that is generated in buying the scrip (the $10 monthly charge)
- Using a currency may be better than a service exchange, but here are some service exchange programs ideas:
- TO move forward:
o Contact local community groups that would support the project, like the CoOps, the Davis Food CoOp, Project Compost, Students for Sustainable Ag, CSSC, Farmer's Market Association, The Domes, Davis People's Free School, J- St. CoOp, N- St. CoOp, MLC,
- Things to ask:
o Is this interesting, and something you would like to pursue – YES, SSA likes the idea and wants to pursue it
- Alida – has information for Nico and Rainbow on another program that is running into issues with their community currency
- Will the Davis Business Association, City Council be involved – Nico will be contacting them….
- Does anyone you know have good web skills to help design a good website to help set this up – LIZ MAY KNOW SOME, SHE WILL ASK…
- Rainbow – on
o Has talked to a lot of people that have been interested in the topic, and people who have tried it
o It will take a lot of attention and support to make it more sustainable
o Free Service Exchange can be designed instead – no direct exchange, no accounting, you can use these services if you want; you submit one service, and then you have a list of services that you can choose from yourself
o The IRS is wanting people to keep track of these expenses, so it somewhat defeats the whole purpose of the community exchange
o Christie – in Berkeley, there are several credit unions that are offering a community building investment program that shareholders have the ability to vote on what projects they would like to see occur in their community
- IRS issue is kinda scary – Nico will be doing more research on this; Ithaca Hours do not have to keep track of their currency; we may be able to get around this by changing the name, instead of "Davis Currency", it can be something more like "
- Alida will be getting her friend's research project on Local Currencies, and will be forwarding it to Nico and listserve….
- Please send us Input on services that you would be interested in offering, so that we can get an idea of what the community would be providing...
- Getting local business involved/on-board is good, because then we won't be putting them out of business

Obama Action – Christie McCullen
- COMFOOD listserve is asking organizations for policy suggestions
- SSA will be doing our own thing, and also send it to COMFOOD
- Can publish our letter to the Roosevelt Institute
- CCE for reorientation guide for 2009-2010
- Organization
o When do we want to send it out? December 8th
o We want it to be concise, so that Obama will actually read it
- Ideas for letter:
o Put on smart-site in form of wiki; people can add things to the wiki based on these ideas
- Publish letter – send it California Senators (Boxer and Feinstein), ASI, SAREP,

IDEAS FOR LETTER:
Maggie:
Small scale has relatively higher output than large scale + it increases jobs in the agricultural sector so support small scale
Support new farmers credit, capital, resources, and public, abandoned lands (describe the creativity and ambition of new farmers paired with creative urban landscapes to make food)
Farming in education
Decreasing dependence on petroleum
Funding research
Funding extension
Where does the funding for all this new support come from? Decrease subsidies!
Increase Equip type environmental subisidies instead and not directed to CAFO's
Make big ag responsible for negative externalities
Harvest methane from shit lagoons for energy
Make patenting life illegal (i.e. Don't necessarily go against biotechnology but go against the laws that allow corporations to patent life forms)
Kendra:
Locally-marketed food tends to be more diverse and fresh, improving"food security";
Common sense tells us that locally-marketed food carries less embodied
transport energy, contributing less greenhouse gas etc. problem is, those damn (highly biased) new zealand lamb producers (in the economist and NY times) and some UC davis study i can't wait to read, both refuting claims of local food distribution efficiency, seem to have (unfairly) gotten most of the recognition on this issue. Anyone have convincing articles on this to recommend?
3. Farmers who own their land are more likely to steward it well and
contribute to overall environmental quality.
4. Small farms who sell locally contribute lots more to their local
economies (i heard michael shuman say something like 40% of local farms'
income dollars stay in their communities, vs. 8% of wal mart and safeways'
food dollars... anyone have a citation?)
5. The goldschmidt idea that rural social welfare is better where family
farms are alive and well... our own mccannell and fujimoto have contributed
to this research, and a much-overlooked government paper shows that
communities which have excluded corporate agribusiness on a certain scale,
across the midwest etc., have ended up faring better than those which
invited it in. I have some good references on this, but welcome more. it's a
good one.
6. Land permanently dedicated to smaller-scale agriculture helps create
growth boundaries and is more likely to provide good buffers, wildlife
habitat, and all the things listed above than land constantly being optioned
out by developers.
Alida:
Along with supporting new farmers, support programs for minority and
immigrant farmers and for farm workers who want to start their own farms
*Help for young returning veterans to start farms
*Immigration reform! Addressing legal status etc for the people who
grow/harvest/process our food
*Extending national labor standards to agricultural labor, and enforcing
them
*Fair labor certification program (like organic- or adding labor into
organic standards)
*Cooperative development programs
*addressing international trade, trade agreements, etc as a part of this, another big/difficult topic but CRUCIAL to the futures of small farmers both in the US and abroad
Need to add:
- whole food system
- economic security
- energy security
- nutrition
- urban development
- social justice
- international trade (NAFTA, CAFTA)
- Food Safety
- Labeling Regulation***add Legalize Irradiation for all leafy greens? This should be opposed
- Food Access (Social Justice) - Community Planning for Grocery Store placement
- Farm-to-School/Farm-to-Institution/Farm-to-College
- Tax credits for businesses who use local foods
- Taxing people who purchase processed foods
- Subsidizing produce crops, not commodity crops
- Seed saving
- Waste management à more composting! (education, community based)
- Textiles (Sweatshop Free)
Christie** Check out the California Food and Justice Coalition à policy recommendations for the Farm Bill reform (more food system)

Meeting for Obama Action – Meet Next Tuesday at Christie's House – 7pm 809 E. 11th Davis, CA

Next SSA Meeting – Tuesday November 25th

Olive Harvest 2008

2008-11-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

Students for Sustainable Agriculture was at it again - they harvested a load of olives from the campus and turned it into liquid gold (and by liquid gold, we mean olive oil of course!)

This year, the olive harvest took place on Russell Blvd, just on the north side of campus. Around 30 people came out to join SSA in picking. Ladders were in tote, as well as bike carts, tarps, buckets, and canvass bags. People had all sorts of means to reaching the high clusters of olives deep in the olive tree branches including hoisting themselves up on stepstools, buckets, and tables. The most efficient pickers were those who brought their ladders.

A big thanks to Alida, Rainbow, and Rick for organizing this year's olive harvest and securing permission from the University to pick on campus. Also, a great big thanks to Mike Madison of Yolo Bulb for pressing our olives into olive oil for us. Check back soon as to how much olive oil we pressed and where to pick up your oil!

SSA Makes Real Food Challenge Website

2008-11-30T10:49:00.000-08:00

Students for Sustainable Agriculture was spotlighted on the Real Food Challenge website for their work on educating students during Local Food Week about the REAL FOOD!

Check it out here:

http://realfoodchallenge.org/

Local Food Week Fall 2008!

2008-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

Students for Sustainable Agriculture hosted its twice-annual Local Food Week in October. The goal of the event was to celebrate local food and help to educate the community about local food, social justice, and real food issues. The Real Food Challenge campaign was also took part this week, and students had the opportunity to urge their campus food providers to provide REAL FOOD - at least 20% by 2020.

The week's event entailed as follows:

Tuesday
- Tour of the campus Tri-CoOps gardens led by Project Compost Director and SSA foodie Liz Fitzgerald.
- Proposition 2 speaker Michael Gregor from the Humane Society of the United States came and talked to us about the proposition for animal welfare in dairy, pork, and poultry industries.

Wednesday:
- East Quad Farmer's Market - SSA had a poster at the Student Farm stand
- Farm to College night at the campus dining rooms, Segundo and Tercero. SSA members dressed up in kiwi, corn, and pea costumes and talked to students about the Real Food Challenge, what University Dining Services is doing when it comes to real food, and engaging students and community members in conversations about local food systems

Thursday:
- CoHo Taste Test - Katie Cooper and Paige Culver, SSA members, went shopping at the Davis Farmer's Market to get together a great salad made from local greens and fruit for all of the UC Davis community to try. There was another great appearance from the kiwi, corn, and fruit.
- Sex funk and Danger at the Student Farm - SSA members and friends rocked out to some amazing music and REAL food at the student farm!

Meeting Notes October 28th, 2008!!

2008-11-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

SSA meeting notes 10/28/08

Attendees: jen, Liz, Alida, Maggie, Dani, nick, and Katie

Local foods week debrief

TUESDAY:

-Co-op garden tour: 3 people, led by lizà went alright

-improve: promotion for next time, add poster to tri-coop sign

-yes, do it next time!

-Prop 2: needed opposition, very one sided
-good to have something political for next time

WEDNESDAY:

-farmer's market: poster (thanks Jen!)
-need to get student farm more involved

-Farm to college night: fun!
-did we get our message across? – No!
-what to do better: not be so "disneyland", not make pictures the focus (take picture after); need to get deeper, radical
-next spring will be outside and more community members…be thinking about what to do then

THURSDAY:

-CoHo tasting: more responsive and approachable from audience, people came to us instead of being part of the traffic flow, not as aggressive; pictures optional

Sex funk and Danger
-Fun!
-food= good, Katie is happy to do that again
-next time: lunch time on the quad, music, mic talk, friends play music
-where were the student farm people????
-Priority= get student farm seen
-Add map to flier
-King Corn: didn't happen, no show …showing later

Things to add:

- health center: info on how real food can be healthy

- how to hook people in: physically or metaphorically

- pay attention to little details
-ex: student farm vs. central location

follow up:

- list serve updated

- pictures: Dani, Paige, Jay, Katie, Liz – get pictures to Dani to create poster

Other items:

- Olive oil pick is weekend of 22/23…more to come soon

Obama Gives Thoughts on Michael Pollan's Times Magazine Letter

2008-11-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

In an interview with Joe Klein of Time Magazine today, Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged the brilliant letter to the next president by Michael Pollan and said that agriculture is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, is a national security risk, and is built on cheap oil:

“I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael
Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is
built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is
contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And
in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to
national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices
or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are
partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because
they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease,
obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in
healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think
about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true
on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.
For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy
in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security
and drives our economy, that’s going to be my number one priority when
I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to
just stabilize the immediate economic situation.”

To read this at it's source click HERE!

Also, check out this letter to Michael Pollan!

2008-11-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

Farmer in Chief

By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: October 9, 2008

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production...

Read the whole article HERE!

October 14th Meeting Notes

2008-10-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

Meeting Notes – 10/14

Liz got an email asking SSA if we want to hook up with Ag Sciences. This person should come to our meeting and let us know details and specifics.

Olive pick – there is a berkeley olive pick but Luis/Sean is not going to lead Davis olive pick. Does someone want to head that. Also, Mike is not going to press olives for other people. UC Davis does have its own olive press. Will the olive press people be okay with us picking UCD olives. Alida might lead it up. Maggie will ask Alida to head it up. Ask Sean the process he went through.

Cookbook sale on Friday – Thank you Mark for making sure we got in! It was fun and nice. Handouts and cookbooks were printed with a decent Kinko's discount. Sold 10 cookbooks and net profited 55 bucks with cookbooks left over to sale. Paige will put photos on blog site.

LOCAL FOOD WEEK

Tuesday-

Co-op Garden Tour 12-1

Prop 2 Talk 6pm in Veihmyer 212

Michael Gregger – will also be on Local Dirt

Looking for another person to represent other side.

Wednesday

10-2 Farmer's Market – Student Farm – Katie will do poster and Dani will give them a stack of fliers.

4:30-8:00 Farm to College

Table at two locations.

Segundo and Tercero – At least four tablers total. Cool Eating Cards and Recipes and Big Green poster for Segundo. Two baskets of student farm produce. Digital cameras-liz, katie, paige, comment cards, costumes, release forms/sign saying this will be put on rfc, slogan, veggie stamps.

We don't want to be too demanding but we don't want to say that the food system is perfect.

More Real Food Now

More Real Food

I Heart Real Food

Real Food Please

What's Real Food?

I support Real Food

I'm taking the Real Food Challenge!

Co Ho Celebrate Real Food

Examples for CoHo

Examples Dining Services

plus comment card

Segundo

Amber, Maggie, Jen, Little bit of Liz

Tercero

Lenin, Paige, Katie?, Alida?

Thursday

12-2 coho taste and table and comment cards – Mary Strange Mu Auxilliary Services for a table set up right outside hot food line – Paige – cameras, veggie suits, cut up old paper and bring cool pens. taste test – for free from student farm, reserve veggies from SF&D – nominate katie and amber – talk to raul to see if we can get produce from student farm/purchase from farmer's market – we can volunteer to pick it. get popcorn and test it to make sure it pops – dani will test popcorn. get the produce to them Thursday morning.

5:30 S,F,&D Bowley -

$50 dollars for S, F &D

Field house if it rains.

How much ampage do you need?

Katie said she would make rice and beans.

Liz will get dishes and silverware.

Jen will help wash.

7:00 King Corn/popcorn – Liz will deal King Corn

Amber needs to tell SSA action.

Don't print more seasonality charts until talking to Mark.

UC Davis Celebration Banquet and SSA!!

2008-10-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

On the evening of October 10th, 2008 Students for Sustainable Agriculture and the Student Farm tabled at the UC Davis Celebration Banquet for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences!! The event was beautiful, with a huge Farmer's Market display and catered food.

SSA would like to give a special thanks to Mark Van Horn and the Student Farm for involving SSA in the banquet! SSA was the ONLY student organization at the event and with the help of the Student Farm, SSA was an important part of the banquet! Our table was right across from the Farmer's Market display, and everyone who came in walked right by our table! It was great to "show-up" SSA and the Student Farm at such a nice event!

Another thanks to Katie and Ethan for helping table! It was a fun night, and we all got to eat some yummy food and get a bag of veggies from the Farmer's Market display! Thanks to Carrie Cloud for all her help, and everyone else who was involved! The event was a great success!

SSA not only handed out our Cool Eating Tips, we also sold our cookbooks! We sold a total of TEN and all the proceeds go toward SSA and future activities. Yeay!

Meeting Notes from September 30th, 2008

2008-10-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

SSA Meeting Notes 9/30/08
permanent meeting time is Tuesdays at 6:30
need to contact Teresa Costa to reserve a room and have her contact custodial services > Maggie’s on it
Dani’s managing the listserv
Amber is still the treasurer? Paige will check.
Paige picks up mail
We are invited to the Berkeley Olive Fest next month (no date known)
SSA stuff will be kept in the field house from now on
Paige will take inventory of fliers and get more copies if needed
Events
Michael Greger to speak on Prop 2
On Oct 21st in the afternoon/evening
Need to reserve a room, a small one
Maybe a debate? If that’s ok with him
Prop 2: farm safety and cruelty act, supports local farms, ensures animals have a certain ammt of space, bad for factory farms!
Fall Local Food Week
Need to start working on it now
Close to farm to college night (Oct 22nd)?
Committee: Maggie, Liz, Jenn, Katie, Paige…
UCD Centennial
Weekend of Fri Oct. 11th
They want to sell our cookbooks
Don’t know if we can sell them/table
Sac community garden
We are wanted to help design and build a community garden at an appt. complex in Sac
People reluctant to adopt project, very labor intensive
Cosponsor Beehive Collective event?
It is a group of artists who do interactive, politically charged art installation and travel all over the world to present them
Need some money, maybe 50-100 dollars?
SSA has supported them in the past
Rainbow is the contact person, Alida will contact here
Oct 16, Enviro Club Showcase
Event to showcase enviro clubs on campus
In the evening time, in Geidt hall, contact Brian Seaby
CSSC Convergence
Oct 24-26 at SFSU
Info about it will go out on listserv
Farm to College Night
Oct 22nd
Real Food Challenge
this is the Real Food Challenge Month of Action!
lets stack that with Farm to College night
comment card campaign at dining facilities on campus
event at Market Garden?
Cant have true potluck: cant serve homecooked food to random public
We can have music outside, speakers inside
Can go thru co-ho for catering (give them raw materials and have them prep for a small fee)
Movie on the quad? Potato sack races? Fun ag activities?
Local foods week group will talk more in depth about these events
ANNOUNCEMENTS
student farm potluck next Tuesday
Hoes down this weekend, go!
Project Compost is awesome, volunteer meetings are in the MU basement, room MU 43, on Mondays at 6pm. Come on down!
Idea about using community currency in Davis (Brandon will do more research. Did I get your name right?)

Thanks for note taking Liz!

WOW Resource Fair

2008-09-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday September 16th, SSA and The Student Farm joined together in a joint recruitment effort at the Graduate Resource Fair! The tabling went very smoothly, and we had a lot of traffic. A great big thanks to all those who helped out, especially Mark, Ann, Christie, and Aubrey! It was tons of fun, and both SSA and The Student Farm received lots of new recruiters! Welcome to all the new SSA members! Whether you come to meetings, or just utilize our great list serve, we are glad to have you.

September!

2008-09-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

Hello all! I hope you've all been having fantastic, adventure-filled and restful summers. It's time to welcome in the new year and SSA encourages you to check back here periodically for updates and events.

Cheers!

Envisioning...

2008-05-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

... a look back at this year's SSA highlights and ideas for the coming year.

Focus the Nation

Working as a subcommittee branched off of the main SSA group worked really well.

We did a good job outreaching and getting people on the listserve to participate.

This was a high profile event that garnered a lot of attention

We should distinguish ourselves more from the Sodexho booth (people thought we were the same! yikes!)

Tools we used for this event are being used for other events (the cool eating poster/cards)

Suggestion: Have the professional talks at the same place the booths were

Picnic Day

Tshirt/cookbooks fundraising, though not much money was made

Good outreach, but many people were not from Davis

We should try sharing a booth with other student orgs. (i.e. project compost, student farm, etc.)

Forgo this event, if we are lacking in time and energy

Local Foods Week

A lot of work, so we should have a subcommittee to plan this as early as January and not just one wonderwoman (i.e. Dani). and use some ASI grant money to pay people as an incentive

Went well with a variety of activities, FREE FOOD worked better than movies

Movies still a good idea but not for the amount of money – maybe just one movie

Highlight social justice issues – CIRS do a panel (maybe for ESLP). Instead of having a normal tabling event at the Taste of Coho, we could feature a social justice booth here to get more attention.

Whole Earth

A lot of activities back to back right before WEF

We need to get a better spot next year – by the stage?

The only reason we made money is because we were able to sell strawberries (bought from Capay Organic) to tri coops.

It would have been nice to have people manning the booth both days

Good to have stamps

Get really big posters to be more visible

If we do it for two days we will need to ask the CoHo for cold storage

We have to take responsibility for baskets (ask people to bring them back, or just sell them in paper bags)

Grant proposal

Alida and Luis wrote it

Student Farm/CoHo Poster project – part way done (check it out at the Coho!)

zine – on hold until Alida's thesis

art show – kelly wants to help out

we didn't actually get the money in our account but they are straightening it out

think about future sustainability grants for future funding

olive pick

Went great -- a lot of people came out

potluck afterwards should be in a more public place for people who might not know other people

ask Sean to write a “How to coordinate an Olive Pick”

citrus gleaning

Christy organized it and put it in the enterprise

find citrus trees and ask neighbors to come pick food

Ask Christy to add the letter to the smart site and write a “how to citrus glean”

house was volunteered for cooking and some citrus goods were returned

action research team

Going well

suggestion: eslp could plan local foods week through an ART

local dirt

we need new co hosts

dani is considering do it

rori is leaving

natalie will continue

first meeting of the year/quarters

maggie found it on a flyer at the co op

outreaching on list serv

davis wiki

we had a potluck and a student farm tour

we want more student farm workers involved

invite ASI out there

guide to publicizing an event

sustainability coordinators at dorms

talking to grad advisors for CRD, ECL and IAD

Blog

SSA blog is getting updated regularly for agenda items, pictures, news and event updates

Amber will continue working on it

Eat Local

There is a website on where to purchase locally

Overall/General

Have an orientation session on how to:

Reserve rooms for events

Add to SSA davis wiki

Add to SSA list serv and Smartsite

Food Systems ActionResearch Team

Is going really well. Want to continue into next year as part of SSA.

2. Next Year

Next year we could do an independent research to get credit for the continuation of the ART team. Maybe Ryan could sign off on independent study. ASI.

Real Food Challenge

Real Food Challenge is a way to build solidarity with other sustainable ag work across the country. Leadership training in Arroye Grande in late July. Want to send 2 or 3 people. Perhaps cover transportation with ASI funds. Want to work with RFC next year.

Other projects

Slow Foods Project – Could be the more enjoyment piece of SSA

i.e. collaborate on the olive harvest

Slow Food Conference in San Francisco. Get UC Davis people there.

Canning – Alida might teach a class on canning. Paige is interested in a canning activity too

Outreach brainstorm (email list serv, facebook, participatory activity on the quad with FREE food, flyering – besides school building – co op, farmer's market (?), delta, mishka's, newspapers (aggie and enterprise) lyra halperin – will write a press release and send things, signs at bowley, student farm, co ops, dining commons, co ho little table fliers, spac club days – go be out there and table, davis wiki, table at the DC, go to the core classes for grad groups, ryan's food systems class

SPAC positions

paige for president

someone for treasurer (list serv)

have a facilitating techniques class if club gets bigger

we like having non hierarchial governing structure

Critical activism work vs. socially accepted education presentations

We do want to incorporate more activism work. We think the ART this year is part of that and the Real Food Challenge for next year. We want to continue to push the envelope.

In the past SSA made a concerted effort to be on important committees at all time – made us seem big but at the same time we need the student body standing behind us. We need to get student demand through more education = Real Food Challenge

Glad to have representation on the ASI steering committee

rally for foods – thinking about collaborating with project compost and/or critical mass

SSA is going to vary and change by who is at the table

We should have a visioning after we get new recruitments to create a space for self empowerment.

also think of simple tasks for people to have responsibility for.

we like the idea of breaking off into smaller teams to do different things

having positions (not hierarchial) that people are responsible for to make sure things get done. i.e. listserv person, flyering person, davis wiki person, etc. everyone can take initiative, don't need to ask permission to do what one is interested in.

fate of the CCE website – great idea – someone needs to take that on.

sean can pass the baton of treasurer if someone signs up before he leaves (august)

get extra credit points to go to one of our presentations – i.e. kick off meeting

Think about our overlap with CSSC and ESLP. We could collaborate more?

Envisioning Meeting TODAY

2008-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

SSA is having its envisioning meeting today 6pm at Bowley (potluck first, then discussion). Come by and discuss what we've accomplished this year, what we could work on and what we should plan for the next year.

To kind of prep ourselves for the meeting we can refresh our memory about our mission...

.....To realize our mission (and vision) we employ the following methods:

Connect communities through the celebration of food
Integrate practice and theory to promote ecosystem and human health
Empower students
Utilize local resources and knowledge
Support both interdisciplinary and experiential education
Advocate research pertinent to sustainable agriculture
Stimulate innovative and accessible public outreach in the greater community
Facilitate discussion among diverse viewpoints and perspectives
Support the greater community of farmers, farm workers, and consumers

Projects: past, current and on-going

Development of curriculum for new UCD Sustainable Agriculture major
UCD/Davis Sustainable Ag directory
Farm-to-College
Campus Food System Sustainability Project ~ check out our Participatory Action Research Summary and Workbook!!

http://www.agronomy.ucdavis.edu/IAD203N/IAD203N-05/CFSSP/203_stars_final.pdf

Community outreach (website, sustainable agriculture poster displays, attending events, fact sheets etc.)
Recruitment, network building and strategic planning
Alternatives in Sustainable Agriculture lecture series planning
Local Dirt! A public affairs radio show focused on agrifood system issues.
Slow Foods USA convivium
Real Food Challenge
Focus the National
Local Foods Week

Hope to see you at 6pm tonight!

Whole Earth Festival 2008

2008-05-10T23:06:00.000-07:00

Whole Earth Festival takes place on Mother's Day weekend every year here at the UC Davis Quad and surrounding grassy areas. It is a great opportunity for us to fundraise and get out message of Eating Local Food out there to the masses. Each year we typically sell produce from a local farm. In the past farms included Terra Firma and produce varied from cherries to strawberries and even snow peas. This year Amber hooked us up with a sweet deal with Capay Valley Organics for fresh, local, organic strawberries. We sold the strawberries as well as our t-shirts and cookbooks.

Whole Earth Festival was a fun filled day. We were able to outreach to dozens of community members and non-community members, and even some little kids. Alida's craft project was a big hit with the young'ins and the adults alike. She made rubber stamps that were used to create patches of things like: "I Eat Local," "Sustainable Aggies," "I <3 style="font-style: italic;">[insert favorite veggie here]".

Thank you to Amber for organizing, Luis for donating a tent for the day, our friend who biked our strawberries from market to campus, and the countless number of members who showed up to help table and fundraise: Alida, Laura, Emma, Maggie, Katie, Christie, and more!

-Dani

Local Food Week!

2008-05-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

This is what Alida and I have come up with the the Davis Wiki Site, the SAREP/ASI newsletter, and the CCE Reorientation guide on Local Food Week! I added the pictures in for person touch:

Local Food Week has become an annual tradition at the University of California, Davis campus. Hosted by Students for Sustainable Agriculture, the week is oriented toward educating the campus on the importance of eating locally grown and produced foods. The week's events also stress the importance of a socially just and ecologically sound food system. Eating local decreases the number of "food miles" - meaning that less fuel, carbon, and energy overall is used to get the food from farm to plate. Eating locally can also help support small-scale family farms and strengthen the local economy. Local food makes it easier for the consumer to know how their food was produced and to be able to shake the hand of the person who grew it. Eating locally enables one to establish a knowledge of the food that they are consuming, including its origins, the growing practices, the labor practices involved in food production, and so much more.

Many activities have rocked local food week in the past. One exciting event is a collaboration with the Coffee House in an event called "Taste of the CoHo," where the CoHo shows off their locally grown and produced ingredients and products that they use in typical entrees. Students have an opportunity to taste the entrees for free!

Local Food Week is also aimed at building awareness of the presence of the UC Davis Student Farm, a small-scale organic farm that produces enough food to feed 61 families through Community Supported Agriculture and also countless numbers of student volunteers who work on the farm. During the week, bike tours take students who may have never seen the farm before or
who want to know more about getting involved at the Student Farm out to the place that seems so distant, but is so very close. The Student Farm is located directly to the west of the Colleges at La Rue, and is only a 5 or 10 minute bike ride from the Memorial Union. This year, members of Students for Sustainable Agriculture are planting several rows of popcorn out at the Student Farm to be used at Local Food Week movie screenings!

Other events and activities that happen during Local Food Week are panels, discussions, lectures, and film screenings all on the importance of sustainable food systems, buying local, reducing environmental impact through food, and more. Other student organizations, such as Project Compost and the Davis Veg Society, have helped in providing tabling events and speakers for Local Food Week. Programs, such as the Educational for Sustainable Living seminar, have also contributed events in the past.

Most importantly, Local Food Week is what YOU make of it! Do you want to see any particular topic covered? Have a burning question about food systems you want answered by a panel of experts? Want to see a movie on food systems with your friends? Come to meeting of Students for Sustainable Agriculture and get involved in planning Local Food Week- make it yours!

-Dani

Visioning notes from last year

2008-05-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

Damian has provided the archives for SSA meeting notes dating way back in the day to 2004. I'm still figuring out a way to put them as archives on this site. In the meantime, this might be something good to read over and keep in mind for our visioning meeting next Monday (5.19.08). Things to think about: what have we accomplished? what should we continue to work on? what should we not? should we be celebrating and partying and having more fun together? what are some things we should work on for next year?

"SSA notes continued: SSA Visioning Retreat Session 10/14/07

Members present: (???)

Mission:

Stimulate innovative & accessible public outreach to community:

-Does our name SSA limit our scope and our reach? Other people might see us as being focused on “ag” while we see ourselves as having a bigger scope. i.e. people are not really concerned about “local” in food, more concerned about “social justice”- so we need to think about this in our framing let’s follow up on this- framing & language

Facilitating discussion among diverse viewpoints & perspectives

-Last year’s social justice in sustainable ag lecture, Dori’s seminar on GE foods, panel on affordability of organics, radio station, Alt Ag seminar….

Dealing with affiliations- more official liaisons to communicate back & forth

-Farm tours- q&a forums

Supporting greater community of farmers, farm workers, and consumers

-Let’s add food system workers to this- “agriculture & food system workers”

-but this is really big- how far do you go?

-difference btw mission/vision and how we actually strategically engage-

-if we did nothing but advocate for CIRS & CAFF we’d have a lot of good work to do

-more visibility of good student work.

-this point is tied to local knowledge, outreach, the idea that the university is not necessarily the experts.

-physically supporting- working on farms

furthering above stated goals/mission/objectives in greater community instead of being an objective in itself- this principle speaks to sphere of influence

Overall mission thoughts: Does this speak to our mission?

-It’s only meaningful with the bullet points- our one sentence mission is not meaningful by itself.

-First sentence of mission is important to give a few parameters

-We should develop a values statement- explicitly say what we are acknowledging implicitly

Goals:

Integrate w/student farm

Broaden our conversation

Integrate production/food system

Keep things interdisciplinary

Outreach to greater community

Dealing with affiliations

Ideas:

Visual history

Farm tours

Presenting our work

Organization Building:

-Meetings used to have: Meals, facilitator, notetaker, consensual decision process, notes are circulated. DP experience: meetings would have some discussion & those most interested would take lead, other people would sign on to work on it, they’d do logistics outside the meeting. Then people report back at meeting as to what they’ve been doing, checkin, decisions are made at group. Meetings are more reporting on projects, not working on projects with entire group. Like a steering committee.

-SSA is kind of like a sounding/advisory board- lets people work on what they’re interested in and report back on what they’re doing- not about process of particular projects.

-It’s an affiliation- communication, social relations-

-Process: do we make action teams for the year? – not all at once-- meeting is continual process of reporting back.

-Scale—do we have enough people to do it? – it’s a communication issue, doesn’t matter how many people. Mtg is about concise communication- details come later.

-this works well but can’t be super rigid- burnout factor of ppl working on multiple projects- mtgs can be a place to introduce ideas & see who’s interested, depending on what topic is.

-letting people choose how much to become involved- whether/how much to work on projects- ppl can come just for dinner. Retentionà having short meetings.

-lets continue doing it this way.

-What groups do we have now:

--asi liaisons

--sodexho

--local dirt

--undergrad major/curriculum building

--event planning

--tours, field trips organizing

--outreach**this should be a committee of its own- having a standing committee of this would be good.

(we used to have a recruitment committee- it’s not that fun says KR)- maybe recruitment is a part of outreach

-3 arms: keeping this balance in everything

--Website as part of outreach! It needs help/ maintenece- logistics are falling to wayside

--PR/communications committee

-do we want to separate 3 arms or integrate each into everything? How to deal with integrating action/education/fun? Value statement?

Visioning mtgs are impt- will it happen again, how to make sure it does and renew knowledge of how we operate on a yearly basis?—we agree to address this annually at least—probably again in January.

** wrapup: at each meeting, choose a facilitator & notetaker for next mtg. Facilitator starts an agenda for the mtg and sends out an email, notetaker sends out notes. This is how it works.**

Undergrad major/ASI: report on history and state of affairs:

-in 2003, committees were formed, reports re: what is UCD doing for sustAg? Bradford reports- proposed undergrad major and ASI. Since then, SSA people have been on curriculum development committee. Research to bring in stakeholders’ voices (academics from around country, farmers, practitioners, students) – reflects what’s going on in sustainable ag education. ASI developing simultaneously- hiring new faculty in different disciplines. SSA has helped with search committees to advance our mission statement. Most faculty are onboard, curriculum is being developed. Looking forward: it’s a huge opportunity for SSA- to get more people on board. Curriculum could have a lot of what we do, but as a formal process—opportunity for activism being acknowledged as “credible” learning- getting beyond positivistic views of university. – action learning as part of curriculum.

ASI UPDATE

Alida is the liason to ASI and attended the strategic planning meetings for ASI. ASI sees SSA as a key stakeholder group that they want to engage. It’s important for us to maintain our autonomy from ASI. That’ll be a delicate balance for us to handle in these formative years of ASI. We need to balance our activism and work relationships with ASI faculty, so that our representation with ASI remains respected. ASI will probably not actively seek out our input, but we have support within that institute if we want to give input. Damian suggests that we democratize our ASI and other organizational representation – that is, we demand that ASI always has student representation for their various committees and that students elect those representatives. There is a potential conflict of interest with students who are both employed by ASI and serve as student representatives. Although power dynamics will exist within these student-ASI relationships regardless of employment. This year, we need to decide what relationship and representation we want and what it will look like (including specifications). We should look at the history of the formation of SAREP to understand some of the issues of inequality that resulted in litigation and legislation to create SAREP and other concessions. Important for SSA to be involved because the research that ASI puts out will influence and define the sustainable ag agenda. There’s great possibility that issues of social structural inequality will not be addressed by the faculty, but could be if student voice is a part of that. An SSA representative will advise the student committee (made of ~ 6 members – 2 from each of UCD’s colleges).

· Action Item: Create the student committee of ASI with help from Tom Tomich.

· Action Item: Plan a long conversation/dinner meeting of the history of SAREP and themes of cooptation and concessions – Alida and Damian.

SSA AND SODEXHO RELATIONSHIP

What should that relationship look like? We have an invitation from Sodexho to play a supporting role with their farm-to-college night. We can have a discussion about what involvement to have at the next meeting. Danielle thinks that we should continue to work with them because the University is who is responsible for employment policy, not Sodexho itself. Can we be involved and still represent our position on employment? Can we team up with SOC to table a"

it kind of ends there, but i hope you guys found this as helpful as i did!

-Amber

Eating gets even more complicated

2008-05-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a very interesting read from BBC News that sheds light on research that factory farming may actually be more environmentally friendly than organic, pasture-raised meat. For vegetarians, it's probably just adds to their conviction for saying no to meat at all, but it definitely makes things even more complicated for those who love the environment but like to eat meat. And for all you lacto-vegetarians (vegetarians who consume dairy), don't think you're off the hook either... the article has a section about how dairy is just as wasteful as eating beef! Read on! Click here for the link

Meat in a low-carbon world

By Tom Heap
Costing the Earth, Radio 4

Feel-good food just got tricky.

It was easy when "good" meant anything which could have stepped off a John Constable canvas: free range chicken, foraging pigs and grazing cattle.

But then climate change came along. No one noticed at first, still concentrating their fire on the obvious targets like 4x4s, long flights and coal power stations; but our meaty diet is laden with greenhouse gases, and trying to reduce them throws up some unpalatable choices.

It has prompted the Vegetarian Society to take out adverts in the paper declaring that our carnivorous tastes are a "silent but deadly" assault on our climate.

First a few farmyard facts. Cows and sheep are ruminants which means their digestion produces much methane, a gas with about 20 times the global warming power per puff than carbon dioxide.

It comes out in breath, burps and farts. Their manure is also heavy with nitrates which pollute both water and air.

Pigs produce less gas, but plenty of manure. Chickens eat and waste little.

There is also a vast difference in the efficiency with which they turn vegetable fodder into meat protein; and the less land you need to feed each animal, the more you have left for anything else - like climate-friendly forests.

Cows and sheep need 8kg of grain for every 1kg of meat they produce, pigs about 4kg. The most efficient poultry units need a mere 1.6kg of feed to produce 1kg of chicken.

The UN's food and agriculture organisation has added all this up and decreed that livestock warms the planet more than transport.

Organic poultry meat has about 45% more global warming potential than indoor-reared poultry meat
Peter Bradnock, British Poultry Council

So in fear that the "anti-carbon tyrant" might wipe their business from the planet, the meat industry has been looking for low greenhouse gas (GHG) solutions, and the problem is that many of them are found indoors.

Housing animals gives humans control. The diet can be precisely manipulated to maximise growth and minimise polluting gases.

Animals do not waste food energy on running about and keeping warm. Their manure can be collected and burned as a fuel, avoiding damaging evaporation and seepage into rivers.

In the future, it is hoped that sealed barns would have exhaust vents where the harmful gases could be captured before they entered the atmosphere.

This combination of precision husbandry and species advantage is what puts commercial indoor poultry sheds at the top of the climate chart.

Peter Bradnock of the British Poultry Council says: "Organic poultry meat has about 45% more global warming potential than indoor-reared poultry meat.

"If you're rearing outside, then the bird is using a little more of its feed to keep itself warm, or simply to keep itself cool in hot climates."

Dairy drawbacks

There is a further hiccup with the vegetarian option: most of those who avoid meat source their protein from dairy foods.

And dairy animals pump out gases and gobble up supplementary feed just like the rest.

If you are avoiding meat for climate reasons, you should be shunning dairy too.

But as abandoning it is unlikely, are there any reduced GHG options? Yes; but once again, they are not the rustic visions you see in the adverts.

Jon Moorby of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research at the University of Aberystwyth believes that intensive indoor dairy farms are more climate friendly than their outdoor brethren.

"In general, intensive dairy farms are actually quite good for the environment, because it allows us to control what we do with what comes out of the cow much better than in a more extensive system," he says.

"With the animals being inside all the time, it allows us to control the manure and slurries from them much better than we can when they're outside."

But that goes contrary to a basic belief that animals should be allowed to range outdoors in as natural an environment as possible.

"Your Holstein dairy cow is almost like your Formula One car of the bovine world, and you wouldn't keep your Formula One car outside under a bit of plastic, would you?" counters Jon Moorby.

"So you've got to nurture them. Being inside, especially when it's bad weather, is the best thing for them."

Find that all too distasteful? Then try this: upland-grass-fed sheep and cattle graze on land where little else will grow and their feeding habits actually encourage wildlife.

So they may be a bit gassy but at least they are not demanding that distant lands be ploughed, and they are nibbling a home for birds, butterflies and beetles.

Vegetarians argue that the simple answer is to avoid meat; but altering the diet of billions is a tall order and would rock the lives of millions of farmers.

But in negotiating the place of animals in a low carbon world, we should remember that, unlike cars, they are life forms and deserve respect.

Costing The Earth will be broadcast at 2100 BST on Thursday, 8 May, on BBC Radio 4 and repeated at 1500 BST on Friday, 9 May, at 1500 BST. You can also listen online for 7 days after that at Radio 4's Listen again page.

Important agenda items...

2008-05-06T17:05:00.001-07:00

... and meeting notes from our May 5th meeting!

1. Strawberry spring harvest

If you haven't already noticed nor been stuffing your face full of them these past few weeks....it's strawberry season! SSA will be having its annual spring harvest at Pacific Star Gardens Sunday May 18th. We are going to meet at the MU flagpole at 1pm and bike there. It's about 7 miles from campus and will cost $12 for a big container full (you can eat as you pick too).

Dani is opening her house for anyone who would like to make strawberry related goodies until about 8pm that evening. You can join us for either the harvest or the eating if you're pressed for time!

2. Whole Earth Festival

I sent a sign-up sheet for WEF booth. We need more people! Please come and help us out by giving an hour or two of your time between 9am-5pm. We are booth #473 and will be promoting sustainable agriculture and selling strawberries.

3. Popcorn for SSA

Raoul Adamchak (the head honcho of the Market Garden) is lending a space for SSA to plant popcorn to have for future events. Woohoo! We will be planting the popcorn this Thursday May 8th at 2pm.

4. Farm to College night will be June 4th at all the freshman dining commons. More on this later.

5. A second copy of th eCoffeehouse - Student Farm poster will hopefully be put up at the Student Farm (at Bowley, I believe) very soon :)

6. Keep on the lookout for the new Slow Foods USA convivium that will be coming to Davis. Amber and Katie are planning with a woman named Nicole to have this be something SSA supports, rather than a separate group from it. SlowFoods will be more of the celebration aspect of agriculture -- enjoying and appreciating good, quality food -- while SSA and the Real Food Challenge will be the activism component of our mission.

7. SSA Visioning Night

This will be a crucial last(?) meeting to talk about our vision and goals for next year. We want to brainstorm now to prepare ourselves better and think about these things ahead of time. This is the meeting to come to if you want to be heard to see things being done that didn't get to be addressed this year. Some ideas that we'll be bringing up are hopefully more emphasis on social justice and student outreach and education.

The meeting will be at BOWLEY. Monday, May 19th at 6pm. As usual, we'll have our potluck and eat good things while we discuss good things.

-Amber

Local Fair Trade?

2008-05-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

The phrase Fair Trade might conjure up the idea of fairness and equality to a farmer far, far away in the tropics or the other hemisphere. You might think that the farmer was part of a mean, nasty agricultural system that didn't treat him very well because that country isn't developed enough to think about those kinds of things.

In reality though, Fair Trade is a movement that is happening here on our very U.S. soil as well, as people are starting to respond to the shocking truth there are farmers in this country who are living like slaves. What's more shocking is that many of these farmers are working in organic farms. I know that until very recently, I personally have always believed that organic farms was all good and ethical -- that it was all about doing the right thing, taking care of the land and protecting the health and well-being of the farmers.

Read this excellent, excellent article to have the knowledge of what's kinds of injustices are going on in America's organic industry and how people are responding to it.

Also, to take action, you can sign this petition that's aiming to help bring justice and relief to the Imokalee farm workers in Florida. This group of farm workers are just one case scenario where they are treated as slaves -- minimum wages, physical abuse, and no worker benefits.

-Amber

2008-05-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

Let's hear it for the first Students for Sustainable Agriculture blogspot post! Yay!

Hopefully, this will be one of those things that the fabulous members of SSA will update pretty frequently to inform the world about what we're doing in the campus and community.

So to start this blog off, how about a picture of the Local Foods Week kick-off both at the Coffee House? There you will see (from left) Katie, Dani, Amber, Alida and Maggie's rockin' cool eating tips poster from Focus the Nation that she painted! LFW was really well organized and of course, delicious. Maybe Dani (the wonder woman who made it happen) can fill us in on more details a little later on :)

One very, very exciting thing about LFW was the debut of the Coffee House - Student Farm poster. This poster was made possible by the collective effort of Lani (the genius designer), Alida (the fierce one with the funds), Amber (the enthusiastic visionary) and Natalia (the lovely Coho intern on the left in the picture). We all wanted to show the people of Davis who frequent the CoHo that the 25-year partnership with the Student Farm is a working relationship where many of the foods at the CoHo are grown right on campus and picked by students. This poster should be at the CoHo for.... ever? (hopefully!) Go check it out! ASAP!

Check back next week for Whole Earth Festival (WEF) updates. What is WEF, you ask? It's a festival driven by education, food, art and music aimed at being zero waste. It's next Friday and Saturday (May 9th and 10th) so don't be shy to check it out.

Well that's about it for now. Here are some tips to spend your weekend the SSA way:

1) Go to the Davis Farmers' Market. It opens 8am-1pm every Saturday. It's strawberry season, and it's hard to pass up farm fresh, local strawberries.

2) Cook a meal made with local ingredients for your friends and/or family. Like this simple, healthy Penne With Whateveryougot Vegetables I made the other day... (cook the penne. to make the "sauce" heat some olive oil in the pan, cook a sliced onion and diced carrot until onions are a bit soft, season with salt, add some greens like chard or kale or bokchoy, add in that last bit of pasta sauce from last week you never used up.toss with the penne and add some chopped fresh herbs like parsley. if you're not vegan, sprinkle in some parmesan cheese. yum!)

-This is Amber on behalf of SSA. Over and out!

Media

2000-11-10T01:02:00.000-08:00

Local Dirt Radio
Local Dirt is a radio show hosted on KDVS 90.3 FM in Davis, CA. The show is a project of Students for Sustainable Agriculture. Interested in checking it out? Local Dirt airs live on Tuesdays from 5-6pm. You can also stream past shows from their website.

Interested in helping out? Contact localdirt at gmail dot com.

Students for Sustainable Agriculture in the News
Citrus Gleaning - The Aggie, Apr. 14, 2009
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Major - The Aggie, Oct. 10, 2008

Contact SSA

2000-11-10T01:00:00.000-08:00

You can contact us by emailing sustainableag at ucdavis dot edu.

Please email us if you would like to be added to our listserv.

Resources

2000-11-10T00:47:00.000-08:00

UC Davis resources:
Agriculture Sustainability Institute
California Student Sustainability Coalition: UC Davis
Campus Center for the Environment
East Quad Farmers Market
Project Compost
UC Davis Student Farm
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program

Literary resources:
Cool Cuisine
In Defense of Food
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
The New Agrarianism
The Omnivore's Dilemma

Other Resources:
Organic on the Green
Real Food Challenge

SSA Meetings

2000-11-10T00:37:00.000-08:00

For the fall of 2009, Students for Sustainable Agriculture meets...

Location: Bowley Science Center, UC Davis campus

Time: 6:00 pm

Date: every-other week, starting Monday, November 2nd

During the first 30 minutes of the meeting, we share a meal. Please bring a vegetarian dish to share if you are able. Also - don't forget your eating utensils.

We meet at the red 'X' on the map.

About Students for Sustainable Agriculture

2000-11-10T00:29:00.000-08:00

We are a group of graduate, undergraduate, professors and community members interested in changing our food system. We work together to support community and campus projects with the common goal of supporting a socially just, ecologically balanced and economically viable food system.

Past/Current Projects include:
- UC Davis Student Farm work parties
- The Gleaning Project
- Local Dirt radio
- Real Food Challenge
- Student Farmworker Alliance / Coalition of Immokalee Workers campaign support
- Local Food Week / Keepin' It Real Food week
- Annual Olive Glean and Olive Oil pressing
- Annual Citrus Glean and bike tour