Olive Harvest 2008

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

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!

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!!

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

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!

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!