Calling UCSC’s programs “near and dear to my heart,” Farr said there was no place he would rather have been than on campus among the pioneers and contemporary leaders of sustainable agriculture. Farr hailed UCSC’s spirit of innovation and ability to accomplish a lot with minimal resources, and he credited UCSC leaders with fighting for agroecology, even when it meant taking on vested interests within the University of California system who wanted to confine agriculture programs to the Davis and Riverside campuses. Reading from remarks he entered into the Congressional Record on October 4 to honor the 40th anniversary of sustainable agriculture programs at UCSC, Farr called the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems “one of the most prominent centers of agricultural research and education in the world.” In Congress, Farr has helped secure more than $3 million to support CASFS research and extension projects. Farr has been a proponent of organic farming since his service in the Peace Corps in Colombia in the 1960s, when he saw the importance of helping people improve their ability to grow food. In UCSC’s programs, he recognized the relevance of developing small-scale, intensive, organic food production systems. Over the years, Farr has made several landmark contributions to UCSC’s programs, and CASFS director Patricia Allen thanked him for his commitment to sustainable food and agriculture research and education. As host of the program, Allen read from remarks prepared by environmental studies professor Stephen Gliessman, who was unable to attend the ceremony because he was teaching a class. “We owe the existence of agroecology and CASFS to Sam, and it is up to us to continue to carry his vision of sustainable food systems forward,” Allen read on behalf of Gliessman, who was the first director of agroecology and who holds the Alfred E. Heller Chair in Agroecology.
Farr also authored the 1990 state law that established standards for organic food production and sales in California, square plastic plant pots which became the basis for recent federal organic food standards. In Congress, he has insisted that U.S. Department of Agriculture research stations include a focus on organic agriculture. Former CASFS director Carol Shennan, a professor of environmental studies, thanked Farr for his recent support of research efforts, including UCSC’s Central Coast water monitoring project that has helped farmers reduce pesticide runoff into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and for research on regional food systems. As part of the celebration, Farr and garden manager Christof Bernau planted an heirloom climbing rose—the first in a new rose garden established in Farr’s honor. An adjacent plaque honors Farr for his “visionary support of sustainable food and agriculture research and education.”The second national conference on Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture Education, held July 11–14 at Cornell University in New York, brought together nearly 200 educators and students to share ideas for improving sustainable agriculture education at colleges, universities, apprenticeship programs, and other settings. Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems graduates, students, and staff have played key roles in developing this new organization, whose mission is to “. . . promote and support the development, application, research, and exchange of best teaching and learning practices in sustainable agriculture education and curricula through communication, training, development, and collaborative activities for teachers and learners.”
The burgeoning interest in sustainable agriculture education prompted the founding of the SAEA. “We did a survey of stakeholders around the U.S. before moving forward with developing the association,” says Albie Miles, former curriculum editor at CASFS who helped organize the first national conference, held at Asilomar in 2006. “It was clear from that survey that there was a lot of interest in creating an organization that would help promote educational opportunities and move sustainable agriculture forward as a mainstream academic discipline,” he says. Although the SAEA was originally envisioned as a group that would promote sustainable agriculture programs at post-secondary schools, this year’s conference attendees broadened that scope to include education at a variety of levels. “I was impressed by how enthusiastic everyone was about not defining ourselves too narrowly,” says Katie Monsen, a UCSC graduate student in Environmental Studies who has helped develop the new organization. “We had people there from universities, but also growers and others with educational programs. For example, people are really interested in getting high school students involved in order to increase enrollment in college agronomy programs; other say we need to start sustainable agriculture education even earlier—this opens us up to work with a broad range of folks.” That range was reflected in this year’s group of conference participants, who came from throughout the country to share resources, discuss teaching methods, and create new networks. Monsen notes that despite the geographic differences, attendees found common ground in their educational goals. “We didn’t have a lot of conversations about ‘what is sustainable agriculture,’” she says. “Although there are certainly differences in regional cropping systems, people from across the country had very similar interests when it comes to creating educational opportunities.” In contrast to the typical “top down” approach to education, students have had a major voice in SAEA’s development. UC Davis graduate student Damian Parr, a graduate of UCSC and the CASFS apprenticeship program, is a leading advocate for giving students an equal voice in developing sustainable agriculture programs.
That goal is reflected in SAEA’s statement of values, which include, “A focus on learning and the development of communities of co-learners,” and “The democratization of knowledge and learning.” Next steps for the new organization include developing an online resource directory. “We want to make the web a place where people will be able to put up curricula, ask questions, post ideas and resources,” says Miles. That effort is already underway, with resources shared at this summer’s conference now available online .SAEA subcommittees are also working on student outreach, fundraising, and developing plans for next summer’s conference, which will take place in the Midwest.In Together at the Table, Patricia Allen provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of the potential for alternative agrifood movements to create substantial change in the entire food system. She looks in particular at the sustainable agriculture and community food security movements as examples, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each. The UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program was, happily, accurately showcased in the discussion of sustainable agriculture programs. Then, in the final chapter , she suggests specific strategies for how we can all work together to improve and build the capacity of these movements for creating lasting changes that address all aspects of sustainability—ecological, economic viability, and social equity for all people in the food system. In her conclusions, Allen points out two key areas we, in the sustainable food systems research/practitioner communities need to work on: • Develop a broad-based vision for an alternative agrifood system that goes beyond the traditional ideological framework, and • Continue to broaden constituencies and engage them in democratic processes that can provide political power to move us toward significant change in the agrifood system. Developing a broad-based vision. In Chapter 4, Allen articulately describes the dominant epistemological approach that guides research and education in sustainable agriculture programs. In a nutshell, this is a focus on natural sciences, production innovations, and farm-level projects, mostly at the expense of resources devoted to social equity issues . She points out that sustainable, square pot plastic agrifood systems research and education must be larger in scope and more truly interdisciplinary than the current involvement of mostly production-oriented natural science disciplines. Broadening constituencies. Allen also makes the case that we clearly need constituents that participate in local food system actions, and those that help us link local efforts in larger movements that involve national and international politics. Some of this is happening already through sustainable food and farm advocates that are working on the Farm Bill. We also need to be vigilant about enlarging our “circles” to include those left out of the discussion. The new Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis is one new promising organization for addressing the above concerns in California. Through its strategic planning process, the ASI is developing a broad-based vision that includes diverse stakeholders and encourages participation at all levels. Its vision, core values and operating principles attest to its commitment to be inclusive . This may be one example of what Allen is saying in Together at the Table—that we need to work at many levels in the food system simultaneously from the local to the international.
To do that well, we need many kinds of people with different expertise and local knowledge to be involved. Moreover, we need to acknowledge the importance of each of our contributions and communicate with each other effectively if we really want to make a lasting difference in changing our food system to one that is more sustainable and equitable.Conventional strawberry growers rely on multiple applications of pesticides per year to control lygus bugs , a pest capable of damaging berries badly enough to make them unacceptable for fresh market sale. According to CASFS entomologist and extension specialist Sean Swezey, typical control programs entail 6–8 biweekly calendar applications of insecticide per season, with costs capable of exceeding $500/acre. Yet even these efforts are beginning to fall short of controlling the pest, as lygus has started to display resistance to commonly applied insecticides in California. Swezey and Charlie Pickett of the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Biological Control Program recently received a two-year grant from the USDA’s Pest Management Alternatives Program to extend trap crop techniques developed in organic systems to conventional strawberry operations in an effort to reduce the need for insecticide applications. Trap crops of alfalfa offer lygus a preferred “host” plant: by establishing strips of alfalfa in strawberry plantings, growers can concentrate the pest in one place and control it with either a vacuum system or conventional sprays. The PMAP grant will fund efforts by Swezey, Pickett, and CASFS research associates Janet Bryer and Diego Nieto to fine tune techniques they’ve developed over the past several years in organic operations using alfalfa trap crops combined with periodic trap crop vacuuming, supplemented by an introduced lygus parasitoid. In the organic research site, the team will determine the number of vacuum passes over an alfalfa trap crop that will optimize lygus removal. “We want to find out whether a significant or economically important number of lygus bugs are removed after each successive vacuuming pass,” says Swezey. “We may find that the first pass or two removes the majority of the lygus present, and that further passes don’t make enough difference in decreasing the remaining number of lygus to be justified.” Establishing an optimal ratio of lygus bug reduction-to-tractor expense will help prevent unnecessary passes, thereby lowering labor costs and tractor operation expenses. The research team will also determine the extent to which an introduced parasitoid of lygus, the braconid wasp Peristenus relictus, is helping control lygus populations in strawberry rows planted between strips of alfalfa. Introduced into a Central Coast organic strawberry operation in 2004, the wasp is now established at the site. Research efforts over the next two years will focus on the percent of lygus parastized by P. relictus in strawberry rows 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 . In the 40-acre conventionally managed strawberry system, the researchers want to determine whether treating a trap crop with insecticides will control the pests effectively enough to decrease or eliminate the need to spray the crop itself. They also hope to determine the best way to manage a trap crop in a conventional system. “We want to optimize the way alfalfa plantings are managed to make them effective ‘traps’ for lygus throughout the season,” says Swezey. This will entail mowing the crops to stimulate new growth and flowering during the summer as a way to enhance the alfalfa’s attractiveness to lygus. Alfalfa plantings have already been established for the upcoming field season at the organic and conventional research sites. Results of the study will appear in future issues of The Cultivar, and will be presented at grower field days planned for late 2009 and 2010.As interest in farm-to-college programs designed to bring local, sustainably produced food into college cafeterias grows, there is also a growing need to understand how to best address the interests and needs of the consumers served by such programs.