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!

October 14th Meeting Notes

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!!

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

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!