SSA Meeting Minutes - Monday, Nov. 30th

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

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

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

Keepin it REAL FOOD Week Wrap Up!

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

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

Keepin it REAL FOOD Week!

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!