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!

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.

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

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

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.