Growing a Program in Sustainable Agriculture at UC Santa Cruz
Patricia Allen and Martha
Brown
A food and farming system that exploits neither people nor resources
and lasts indefinitely has come to be called “sustainable agriculture”.
While this concept is familiar and even supported in many American
agricultural universities, it hasn’t always been so. For decades,
issues such as soil erosion, exploitive working conditions, pest
resistance to pesticides, and small farm viability were brushed aside
as the price of progress in the industrialized agrifood system. Few
thought about sustainability in agriculture until spikes in petroleum
prices during the 1970s caused many to question the energy
intensification of industrialized agriculture and its attendant
problems.1 Some twenty years later a government report heralded
sustainable agriculture as the fourth major era in agriculture
(following the horsepower, mechanical, and chemical eras)—and one that
could have more profound effects than those of the previous
agricultural revolutions.2 This did not mean, of course, that
agricultural universities joined a sustainability bandwagon, preferring
instead to stick to the tried and true perspectives and technologies.
California, however, was an “early innovator” in the
development of sustainable agriculture programs. It was in 1985, at a
time when the concept was considered heretical within the agricultural
establishment, that the University of California held its first
conference on sustainable agriculture. The next year, the California
State legislature passed the Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education Act of 1986, directing the Regents of the University of
California to establish the Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education Program. This systemwide program is complemented by
sustainable agriculture programs at individual campuses of the
University of California, the nation’s largest agricultural land-grant
university (see addendum).
And yet ironically—or perhaps predictably—it was a
non-land-grant University of California campus that had the first and
most diverse program in sustainable agriculture. Based at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, the work of the Center for
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (the Center) is wide-ranging,
including natural and social science research and multiple teaching and
learning approaches. It covers a spectrum that includes research
(theoretical and applied), education (practical and academic) and
public service (with audiences ranging from local school children to
international agencies). This article tells the story of the
development of this unique program and reflects on the challenges it
faces as interest in sustainability grows.
We are now at a turning point in the evolution of sustainable
agriculture research and education. In the nearly forty years since the
center’s beginnings, organic agriculture has grown from fragile,
“fringe” origins to become a multi-billion dollar business, with
companies such as Safeway and Wal-Mart starting their own organic
product lines. Universities around the country are responding with new
undergraduate, graduate, and research programs in organic farming and
sustainable agriculture. Nongovernmental organizations and citizen
groups are developing community supported agriculture, farm-to-school
programs, and farmers’ markets. As we watch these developments, it’s an
interesting time to look back at the way that the programs at Santa
Cruz have helped drive the changes taking place today. Here in
brief is the story of the center’s metamorphosis from a small
student garden to a catalyst for the sustainable agriculture movement
both within the University of California system and beyond.
Laying the
Groundwork: a Farm and Garden at UC Santa Cruz
Beginning in 1967, long before sustainability became part of the
vernacular, students at UC Santa Cruz were practicing organic gardening
under the exacting direction of British master gardener Alan Chadwick.
Chadwick had been brought aboard at the fledgling campus to start a
garden project that would help give students a “sense of place” amidst
the chaos of construction at the newest of the University of California
campuses.
Chadwick brought with him a blend of gardening practices he
called “French intensive biodynamic.” He emphasized a craftsman-like
approach to soil care, using compost and other organic fertilizers and
eschewing anything synthetic. The methods he espoused—creating
double-dug or “raised” beds, placing plants close together to limit
weed competition, amending the soil with organic inputs—would
eventually become standard practice for many organic gardeners across
the U.S. and around the world. (For a more detailed history of the
Garden Project, see The Farm and
Garden Projects at the University of California, Santa Cruz.3)
Some UC Santa Cruz science faculty objected to Chadwick’s
approach and advocated his ouster, calling his practices
“unscientific.” But the students who were attracted to the Garden
Project found in Chadwick an engaging teacher with a missionary zeal,
preaching an earth-friendly approach to gardening that inspired his
young charges and many others on the campus and in the community.
In a 1997 interview with Jim Nelson, one of Chadwick’s student
gardeners, writer Christina Waters noted, “Nelson agrees that
Chadwick’s offbeat approach to agriculture—one that fell through
prevailing scientific cracks—might have threatened some administrators
as much as his popularity with students did. ‘He had a huge following
at his lectures,’ recalls Nelson of Chadwick’s spellbinding
interweaving of poetry, storytelling and philosophy. ‘He would fill the
giant hall of Thimann 3, and even that wasn’t big enough. He had to
start giving lectures in the Quarry, so many people from town started
attending.’”4
Chadwick’s students formed the core of an informal student
“apprenticeship,” laboring alongside him to transform a
chaparral-covered slope in what was then the heart of the growing
campus into a lush, vibrant organic garden. This apprenticeship
approach to teaching—in which instructors worked side-by-side with the
students, gradually giving them increased responsibility—would become a
hallmark of the training approach used at UC Santa Cruz.
Inspired by the garden’s success, students lobbied for a
larger plot of ground on which to put Chadwick’s organic practices to
work. In 1972, seventeen acres on the lower campus were set aside for
an organic campus farm. Later expanded to twenty-five acres, the Santa
Cruz Farm became a demonstration and teaching site for small- and
medium-scale organic farming techniques. Faculty and student
involvement in the garden and farm grew in the 1970s with courses in
organic horticulture and agriculture offered as “practicums” through
the Environmental Studies Department, as well as appropriate technology
and natural history classes based at the farm. Students took advantage
of opportunities provided by the farm and garden to design thesis
projects and learn through independent studies. Students and staff
planted orchards, windbreaks, and perennial borders, creating a
diversified organic farm on the growing campus. They also designed and
constructed buildings and demonstrations gardens.
In 1975, the loosely organized apprenticeship that began under
Chadwick’s direction was formalized into a full-time, year-round
program offered through UC Santa Cruz Extension. With a dedicated work
force, the original Garden Project expanded and the farm grew to
include tractor-cultivated row crops, as well as hand-worked garden
beds, generating enough produce to support a small direct marketing and
wholesale effort.
For many years the farm and garden were supported primarily by student
fees and volunteer efforts. Student fees paid the salaries of the farm
and garden managers and covered necessary materials. Dedicated
community members organized a support group named the “Friends of the
Farm & Garden” to assist the students and apprentice course
members, provide public education, and raise funds, including enough to
construct two buildings. This primarily student-, volunteer- and
staff-run initiative, successful in many ways, nonetheless needed a
more solid academic and financial footing in order to thrive in the
University of California system.
Institution
Building: the Agroecology Program
In the early 1980s three forces combined to change the role of the farm
and garden within UC Santa Cruz. The first of these was a desire on the
part of the campus to add academic content to what was seen as a
largely recreational program. The second was declining campus financial
support as reduced enrollment and tax cuts shrank the pool of student
fees and discretionary funds that had long supported the project. The
third was increasing public concern over the environmental and social
consequences of the conventional food and agriculture system, and the
recognition by the Santa Cruz Environmental Studies Department of the
possibilities for wider academic application of farm and garden
activities.
To develop this potential, in 1981 the Environmental Studies Department
hired plant ecologist Stephen Gliessman. He created the Agroecology
Program, which attracted the attention of a philanthropist, Alfred E.
Heller. In 1983 Heller funded an endowed chair (the first at UC Santa
Cruz) in agroecology, held by Gliessman. His arrival marked the
beginning of a formal emphasis in agroecology in the environmental
studies curriculum. He developed undergraduate classes and attracted
graduate students from the U.S. and abroad to study agricultural
ecology. With no school of agriculture on the campus, the Environmental
Studies Department served as the institutional home for agricultural
research and education, while the farm and garden offered an organic
testing ground for studying agroecosystems. Some of the program’s early
research examined such topics as polycultures—planting a diversity of
crops—versus conventional monocropping systems to compare the
differences in pest damage and productivity; and allelopathy, the
ability of plant species to affect the growth of other plants, as a
weed control option. Other projects tested alternatives to synthetic
pesticides and fertilizers, including predatory insects to control
pests, cover crops to control weeds, and compost to build soil nutrient
levels.
As Gliessman explained, “The underlying principle of our work is to
understand better the ecological processes of natural ecosystems and
apply our findings to what are largely manipulative agricultural
systems. There is a tremendous need and opportunity to develop and
promote agricultural practices that are environmentally sensible,
economically feasible, and socially responsible.”5 Developing an
agricultural system based on those three tenets formed the mission of
the Agroecology Program. It was the first University of California
project to focus specifically on what would come to be known as
“sustainable” agricultural and food systems, and to pursue research,
teaching, and outreach in organic production techniques. The
program also reflected Gliessman’s ties to and interest in
agroecosystems in other countries, particularly in the tropics. He sent
graduate students to Mexico and Costa Rica to conduct research on
centuries-old farming systems and was invited to teach courses at
international universities. Visiting researchers arrived from China,
Brazil, and Mexico to work with Gliessman on basic research in
agroecology.
While the Agroecology Program was becoming more established
academically, its “practical” aspects were on less solid footing. The
Environmental Studies Department covered Gliessman’s salary and the
endowed chair provided a small amount of research funding, but funds
were still needed to continue the operation of the farm and garden
programs. Kay Thornley, a student at the time, volunteered to write
grants to find funding. Together, Gliessman and Thornley developed a
vision for a program that would serve both University of California
students and a much broader audience composed of farmers, gardeners,
and the general public. They were able to secure sufficient grant
funding to establish a program that kept the farm and garden
apprenticeship and other efforts operating and included a major
outreach component (see addendum).
In 1984 the Agroecology Program hired social scientist Patricia
Allen, who initiated some of the nation’s first work on social issues
in sustainable agriculture. Allen was connected to small farm and
direct marketing projects as a result of her prior position as
coordinator of the Small Farm Center at UC Davis. She continued to work
with these groups, integrating sustainability into programs and
projects from which it had been absent. In order to bring greater
attention to the subject of sustainable agriculture, it was Allen who
conceptualized and spearheaded the first University of California
systemwide conference on agricultural sustainability in 1985. At UC
Santa Cruz, she worked with faculty to establish a working-group
seminar that focused on special topics in sustainable food systems.
Reaching out to an international audience, in 1986 Allen and Gliessman
held the first international conference on sustainable agriculture at a
University of California campus, marked with the publication of Global perspectives on agroecology and
sustainable agricultural systems.6 Allen continued to
develop social science research and education projects, and
consideration of social issues began to be integrated into many of the
program’s activities.
As interest in organic production expanded in the 1980s, growers in the
area began to look to the Agroecology Program for answers to farming
questions that more traditional extension services did not address.
Entomologist Sean Swezey was hired in 1989 to develop the Farm
Extension Project and began working with other researchers and local,
small-scale growers on their farms to analyze the transition of a
conventional production system to organic farming practices. “Steve
[Gliessman] put together the team to work with local growers because he
recognized a need,” says Swezey. “It was the first attempt by the
University of California system to formally assist organic growers with
coop-extension style services,” (Swezey, pers. comm., September 2005).
The first of the program’s off-campus efforts focused on strawberries,
a major crop of the region. Grower Jim Cochran worked with program
members to compare conventionally and organically managed strawberries
on land recently cropped in conventional Brussels sprouts. This study
of a farming system in transition was the first of what was to become a
major feature of the Agroecology Program’s research efforts.
As the research and undergraduate education aspects of the program
developed, the already well-established Apprenticeship in Ecological
Horticulture grew from a dozen students a year in the early 1980s to
thirty annual participants, under the direction of instructors Orin
Martin, Olivia Boyce-Abel, Jim Nelson, and Dennis Tamura. The
apprenticeship catered to a nontraditional student audience—most
already held a bachelor’s degree and were looking for practical skills
to apply in a variety of settings.
Unlike most traditional college agronomy programs, the apprenticeship
offered a unique blend of classroom and hands-on training that
emphasized learn by doing. Students received intensive training in
organic soil management, crop planning, greenhouse skills, orchard
care, pest and disease control, and small-scale marketing. The
apprenticeship was clearly meeting a need for this kind of training
since every year it received far more applicants than it could
accommodate. Graduates of the program went on to start their own
organic farms and gardens, teach in school and community gardens, work
in international development programs, and start organic landscaping
companies. Some returned to school for advanced degrees; others got in
on the ground floor of the organic food industry.
Despite the extent of its work, the Agroecology Program lacked secure
funding until 1985 when the University of California Office of the
President provided stable, permanent core funding through a line item
in the university budget. Although the systemwide Sustainable
Agriculture and Research Education Program (SAREP) was initiated in
1986, the Agroecology Program at UC Santa Cruz retained its importance.
A 1989 academic external review extolled the program and stated that it
was unique in three ways: 1) it is the only research and education unit
at a major research university dedicated to research in agroecology; 2)
it is the only such program to address the socioeconomic dimensions of
agricultural sustainability; and 3) it is independent of the
established research traditions of agricultural experiment stations.
This review provided an important endorsement of the program’s critical
role within the University of California.
Expanding
the Framework: the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
By 1990, sustainable agriculture was gaining increased attention as the
social and ecological costs of conventional agriculture mounted and the
organic food industry expanded. A federal Organic Foods Standards Act
was proposed to create a nationally defined standard for organic and a
federal list of allowable materials. Little by little, universities
began to respond to the interest in sustainability, developing
sustainable agriculture programs at many of the nation’s largest
land-grant universities.
Although gratified by this growing interest, Allen and Gliessman raised
concerns over the direction research efforts were taking under the
rubric of “sustainability.” In a 1990 Agroecology Program newsletter
article, Gliessman wrote: “Rather than viewing sustainable agriculture
as a system that encompasses environmental, social, and economic
considerations, many of the efforts now in place have focused solely on
substituting one type of farm input or practice for another. A number
of new programs have been established around the county, many of which
have the word ‘sustainable’ in their title, but most of which suffer
from what I call this ‘input-substitution’ narrowness”.7 Gliessman
published his perspective on sustainability in his 1990 book, Agroecology: Researching the Ecological
Basis for Sustainable Agriculture.8
To address this concern over the narrowing of the definition of
sustainability, in 1990 Allen organized a conference, Sustainable Agriculture: Balancing Social,
Environmental, and Economic Concerns. She sought to reverse the
narrowing trend by broadening the concept to explicitly include
important issues of social needs and human welfare. Allen wrote, “A
major challenge to implementing sustainability is not only to resolve
differences in how the concept is defined and consequently in how its
goals and policies of action are structured, but to recognize how
social and ethical issues factor into the equation."9 In an
effort to encourage thinking and discussion about the need to integrate
social and environmental issues in sustainability, Allen invited
chapters and produced an edited volume, Food for the Future: Conditions and
Contradictions of Sustainability,10 the first book to
articulate the social aspects of sustainable agriculture.
While working to incorporate social issues in sustainable agriculture,
Agroecology Program members also recognized the urgency of finding
environmentally and economically viable ways for growers interested in
organic farming to make the transition from conventional management. In
order to provide much-needed information to these growers, program
researchers initiated a suite of “conversion projects,” building on the
work with strawberries they had begun in 1987. The projects teamed
Agroecology Program and UC Cooperative Extension entomologists, plant
pathologists, soil ecologists, and agricultural economists to study
changes in crop yield, pest and disease populations, beneficial
organisms, soil fertility, and costs and income as local artichoke,
strawberry and apple growers converted their operations from
conventional to organic practices. The work eventually expanded to
include studies of organic and conventional cotton production in the
Central Valley.
A number of factors marked these projects as unique to the Agroecology
Program: they examined “whole systems” rather than isolated factors
within the farming system; they took place on local farms rather than
agricultural experiment stations; they focused on small- and
medium-scale growers rather than large, corporate farms; and they
included the growers as integral parts of the research team. According
to Sean Swezey, “These relationships [with growers] are now commonplace
throughout the land-grant universities across the country. However,
that wasn’t the situation in the late 1980s—that’s one reason the
program was unique,” (Swezey, pers. comm., September 2005). The 1990
hiring of Jim Leap—an experienced organic farmer from Fresno—to manage
the Santa Cruz Farm also enhanced the program’s link to the local
farming community.
The program worked with the community in other ways as well. For
example, Allen and Van Dusen developed the Santa Cruz Food Security
Project to address food security issues, such as hunger and access to
nutritious foods, by teaming with local organizations. Gliessman and
environmental studies professor Jim Pepper initiated the Agriculture
and Community Program that focused on strategies to preserve farmland
and examined farm worker housing issues in Santa Cruz and Monterey
Counties in an effort to inform policymakers of threats to agricultural
sustainability in the region.
Recognizing the Agroecology Program’s major role in addressing both
environmental and social issues in agriculture, the Kellogg Foundation
chose the program as lead agency for the California Alliance for
Sustainable Agriculture [CASA]. Led by Gliessman as principal
investigator and Allen as steering committee member, this two million
dollar project united a diverse group of university programs and
non-profit organizations to work together with a goal of redirecting
agricultural practices and policies onto a more environmentally sound
and socially equitable pathway. The consortium’s work culminated in
CASA’s Call to Action, 11
which laid out a series of strategies for promoting sustainable
agriculture and food systems.
Acknowledging the interdisciplinary and whole-systems scope of the
program’s work, beginning in 1989, various review committees and campus
leaders recommended that the program’s name be changed to reflect its
interests in environmental and social aspects of sustainable food and
agriculture systems. In 1994, the Agroecology Program was renamed the
Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. Shortly
thereafter, under the direction of Dean William Friedland, the campus
decided to invest in the further development of the center by creating
a newly funded 50-percent-time director position. This commitment of
university funds marked a major contribution by UC Santa Cruz to the
center’s future.
In 1997, agroecologist Carol Shennan was hired as the center’s director
and professor of agroecology in the Environmental Studies
Department. Shennan brought an interest in agroecosystems and
landscape ecology and developed a focus on intersections among
agroecology, environment, and community. This involves examining
landscape-level processes in agroecosystems, such as nutrient cycling
and water quality impacts, and the mechanisms needed to implement more
ecologically sound production systems without disadvantaging people who
have limited power or access to resources, including land and capital.
Shennan’s experience in working with divergent groups in agricultural
landscape management provided an important complement to her academic
expertise.
The creation in 1995 of the PhD program in Environmental Studies
provided graduate students the option to specialize in agroecology and
sustainable agriculture. Students also worked with the center through
internships or independent studies developed in collaboration with
faculty in a variety of campus departments, including Community
Studies, Education, Environmental Studies, and Latin American and
Latino Studies. Gliessman’s 1997 textbook, Agroecology: Ecological Processes in
Sustainable Agriculture and its accompanying lab manual, were
the first resources for teaching about ecological concepts and
principles as they apply to the design and management of sustainable
agroecosystems.
Along with serving undergraduate and graduate students, experiential
education remained a major part of the center’s work through the 1990s.
An increasing number of international apprentices, including students
from Asia, Africa, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Israel, Palestine, and
Central America, joined participants from around the U.S. for the
annual apprenticeship training program. Although its focus remained
teaching basic organic farming and gardening skills, the apprenticeship
evolved to reflect trends in the sustainable agriculture movement. The
staff added training in community supported agriculture project
(CSA)—an innovative marketing approach that connects growers and
consumers, and is particularly appropriate for small- and medium-scale
organic farmers. A series of talks on social issues in sustainable
agriculture was also added to the curriculum, as students sought
information on social justice aspects of the food system. With more
restaurants turning toward specialty crops and organic produce, the
program initiated a series of cooking classes to help increase
apprentice knowledge of the “farm-to-table” connection.
Expansion of
Research and Education Programs
Over the past several years, the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable
Food Systems has expanded and deepened its commitment to
multidisciplinary research, relevance to the community, and dedication
to social justice. Much of this work has been supported by Congressman
Sam Farr who helped obtain U.S. Department of Agriculture funds to
expand the reach of the center’s work in California’s Central Coast
region. This multiyear funding made possible an ambitious, ongoing
suite of center research projects to document land use and water
quality; examine the effects of alternative production, marketing, and
research efforts on both ecological sustainability and social
conditions for growers and consumers; and identify barriers to the
development of a healthier Central Coast food system, both ecologically
and socially.
In addition to expanding empirical social science research on campus,
the Farr funding also enabled social science staff to expand efforts to
reach beyond the university. For example, Allen and assistant professor
of Community Studies Julie Guthman, along with the California
Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and the California Food and
Justice Coalition, initiated the Activist Researcher Consortium as a
way for activists and researchers to share ideas and collaborate on
projects focused on the social issues of sustainable food systems.
Locally, center staff and students helped develop a Santa Cruz County
Food Forum and worked with students in their efforts to bring local,
organic, socially just food to campus dining halls. An active
participant in both university and NGO efforts in sustainable food
systems for many years, Allen collaborated with Environmental Studies
professor Margaret FitzSimmons on a major study of programs and
priorities of alternative agrifood institutions in California in
2003,12 and in 2004 published an analysis of alternative agrifood
movements and programs in the U.S., Together
at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American Agrifood
System. 13
The Center continues its commitment to local growers. For
example, Marc Los Huertos was hired in 1999 to conduct water quality
monitoring research, measuring nitrogen and phosphorus levels in
rivers, streams, and irrigation ditches to determine the effects of
farming practices on water quality, with the goal of helping growers
manage nutrients in their farming systems to reduce runoff from
agricultural fields. Directed by Shennan, this landscape-oriented
approach to addressing sustainable agriculture questions has led to
collaborations with faculty in the Department of Earth Sciences and has
garnered additional grant funds from the State Water Quality Control
Board to increase work with local growers.
Efforts to help organic growers received a boost in 2004 as Gliessman,
Shennan, and researcher Joji Muramoto were awarded a competitive grant
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund on-farm research
projects in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties designed to improve
organic production techniques while protecting natural resources.
Commenting on the grant, Shennan noted, “Organic farmers face the same
production challenges as conventional growers, but the research
community has overlooked their needs. With one of the oldest
university-based organic research and training programs in the world
and one of the pioneering academic programs in agroecology, UCSC is in
a good position to help fill in the gaps of scientific knowledge.”
In response to requests for training materials from college farms and
other education programs that had long recognized the apprenticeship as
a model for teaching organic production skills, in 1999
instructors took up the challenge of putting the program’s more than
thirty-five years of training experience down on paper. Center staff
members coordinated by Albie Miles and Ann Lindsey teamed with seven
invited authors to document the curriculum of the six-month training
program. The result was the training manual Teaching Organic Farming and Gardening:
Resources for Instructors (2002).14 Miles also headed an
effort to develop an online sustainable agriculture curriculum for
California’s post-secondary schools, now available on the center’s web
site.
The efforts of center staff and faculty over the years had collectively
produced a University of California program of high academic standing
as well one that is valued by growers, gardeners, non-profit
organizations, children, and others. The most recent (1999) academic
external review of the center found that it was a unique resource and
one of the most renowned sustainable agriculture programs, both
domestically and internationally. The reviewers stated that, they
believed that the social science dimension of the center was what
provided much of its “national and international reputation and
appeal.” The report also found that the Center for Agroecology and
Sustainable Food Systems is the University of California’s “most
accomplished sustainable agriculture program in terms of instruction,
research, and outreach.”
Moving
into the Future
As the center moves into the next era, it will continue to focus on
cutting-edge research, education, and public-service programs. For
example, it is conducting basic and applied research on ways to
conserve nutrients on organic farms, minimize the impacts of farming on
surrounding ecosystems, and manage pests and diseases with organically
acceptable techniques. It is at the forefront of research on social
issues in the agrifood system, with current fields of study including
perceptions of and priorities for social justice in the agrifood
system, farm-to-institution programs, food-system localization efforts,
gender issues in agrifood systems, priorities and pedagogies in
sustainable agriculture education, and consumer interests and
preferences. The center plays a lead role in the evolving field of
farm-to-college programs, with staff working to spread the model of
locally sourced organic food for campus institutions—combined with
sustainable food system education—throughout the University of
California system and beyond. Building on nearly four decades of
training organic farmers and gardeners, center members continue to
develop and improve education programs that offer students and
apprentices experiential training combined with classroom work and to
share these programs with educators nationwide.
As the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
continues to move forward however, new realities require shifting some
of its focus and abilities. Most importantly, the California state
budget situation has meant substantial cuts to the center’s budget. The
result has been the elimination or significant reduction of some
programs and an amplified search for extramural funding. Extramural
funding is only available for certain kinds of activities, which means
that its priorities will be inevitably shaped more by the priorities of
funders than by the mission and priorities of the center itself.
A second factor in reshaping the center’s priorities has been the
increased legitimacy of sustainable agriculture in university programs
nationwide. Where once UC Santa Cruz stood virtually alone in pursuing
the study of agroecology and sustainable food systems, now land-grant
universities such as Ohio State, Iowa State, and North Carolina State
have developed large research farms and programs focused on organic and
sustainable agriculture. Each of these campuses can bring far greater
resources in terms of staff, faculty, students, facilities, and
equipment than will ever be possible at UC Santa Cruz, which does not
have access to university land-grant resources. Accordingly, the center
needs to complement, rather than duplicate, the work of these new
efforts, and focus on the areas in which it can make unique
contributions. As it adapts its programs, however, the center’s
mission remains holistic, interdisciplinary, and progressive: to
research, develop, and advance sustainable food and agricultural
systems that are environmentally sound, economically viable, socially
responsible, non-exploitative, and that serve as a foundation for
future generations.
Endnotes
1 Buttel, F. H., O. F. Larson, and G. W. Gillespie, Jr. 1990. The
sociology of agriculture. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
2 U.S. General Accounting Office. 1992. Sustainable agriculture:
Program management, accomplishments, and opportunities.
GAO/RCED-92-233. Washington, DC.
3 Brown, Martha. 2000. The Farm and Garden Projects at the University
of California, Santa Cruz. Chronicle
of the University of California, Issue 3 - West of Eden, pp.
29-41.
4 Waters, Christina. 1997. Metro
Santa Cruz, October 2.
5 O’Leary, Tom. 1982. A new approach to agriculture. The UCSC Review, Vol. 8 #1, October
1982, pp. 1-2.
6 Allen, Patricia, and Deborah Van Dusen (eds.). 1988. Global perspectives on agroecology and
sustainable agricultural systems. Proceedings of the IFOAM
scientific conference. Santa Cruz, CA: Agroecology Program.
7 Gliessman, Stephen R. 1990a. Sustainability is not just input
substitution. The Cultivar,
Summer 1990. Agroecology Program.
8 Gliessman. Stephen R. (ed.). 1990b. Agroecology:
researching the ecological basis for sustainable agriculture.
Ecological Studies Series No. 78. New York: Springer-Verlag.
9 Allen, Patricia. 1990. Conference to broaden concept of
sustainability. The Cultivar,
Summer 1990. Agroecology Program.
10 Allen, Patricia (ed.). 1993. Food
for the future: conditions and contradictions of sustainability.
John Wiley & Sons.
11 California Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA). 1996. A call to action. Santa Cruz, CA.
12 Allen, P., Margaret FitzSimmons, Michael Goodman, and Keith Warner.
2003. Shifting plates in the agrifood landscape: the tectonics of
alternative agrifood initiatives in California. Journal of Rural Studies 19
(1):61-75.
13 Allen, Patricia. 2004. Together
at the table: sustainability and sustenance in the American agrifood
system. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
14 Miles, Albie, and Martha Brown. 2002. Teaching organic farming and gardening:
resources for instructors. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for
Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems.
Addendum:
Other University of California programs
UC Berkeley’s Center for Sustainable Resource Development conducts
research in natural resource management, integrated pest control, and
global sustainable management strategies. The UC Berkeley Center for
Biological Control conducts research and offers classes in pest
management and biocontrol, and the Department of Environmental Science,
Policy and Management, Division of Insect Biology offers graduate
research, courses, and international short courses in the United States
and Latin America in agroecology, biological control, and sustainable
agriculture. UC Davis’s College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences houses the Department of Agronomy and Range Science, which
offers research and classes on sustainable agriculture as well as a
specialization in sustainable production practices. The UC Davis
Student Experimental Farm offers research and practical education on
sustainable agriculture and organic gardening.
Addendum:
Outreach a High Priority for Center
From the beginning, the Agroecology Program invested significant energy
in outreach efforts for audiences that include researchers, farmers,
teachers, students, backyard gardeners, and local school children. This
dedication to public service and public access continues to mark the
center’s work as unique amongst sustainable agriculture programs.
Soon after the Agroecology Program was founded, Gliessman worked with
Sarah Steinberg, then a graduate student in UC Santa Cruz’s Science
Communication program, to launch The
Cultivar newsletter; for twenty-five years this free newsletter
has kept a worldwide audience of researchers, educators, gardeners,
students, and many others apprised of the program’s activities. Today,
under the direction of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food
Systems’ senior editor Martha Brown, The
Cultivar reaches nearly 3,000 readers in sixty-five countries
and many more via the worldwide web. Other center publications include
a Research Briefs series, information “tip sheets” for organic
gardeners, the News & Notes of
the UCSC Farm & Garden newsletter, and training materials,
including the popular Teaching
Organic Farming and Gardening: Resources for Instructors. Much
of this material is available free from casfs.ucsc.edu.
Center members also put on conferences, short courses, field days, and
on-site demonstrations designed to introduce organic farming and
gardening techniques, present issues in sustainable food and
agriculture, and inform the community about the center’s work. In
conjunction with our community support group, the Friends of the UC
Santa Cruz Farm & Garden, the center sponsors a year-long series of
free and low-cost organic gardening classes, workshops, and seasonal
celebrations. The center also offers both docent-led and self-guided
tours of the UCSC Farm and Alan Chadwick Garden.
A variety of children’s activities are available through the affiliated
Life Lab Science Program, which develops garden-based science and
nutrition curricula. Opened in 2002, Life Lab’s Garden Classroom on the
center’s Farm offers children and teachers a model garden for learning
and exploration. Life Lab sponsors school tours, after-school programs,
summer camps, family activities, and teachers’ workshops at the garden
classroom.
