Food Systems Working Group
FSWG students at their annual on-farm retreat
Formed in 2003–2004, the Food Systems Working Group (FSWG) is a student-led organization that has included UCSC students, staff, faculty, and community members. FSWG works to bring sustainably grown food produced by socially responsible operations to campus dining halls and through a collaborative process, promote education and awareness of our food system. Over time FSWG has incubated a range of projects as student voices have called attention to the intersectional relationship of food, culture, power, and equity. To this end FSWG works across experiential learning sites, curates open pollinated organic seeds for student gardens, partners on food security and basic needs efforts, and hosts outreach events to build our village while continuing to work with Dining to improve our supply chain.
Find out more about FSWG and how you can get involved!
FSWG has served to bring together students passionate about making constructive changes to our campus and community food system. It has become an autonomous student organization committed to collaborative efforts to promote change across the food system through input, planning, and action. FSWG has been centered within the Center of Agroecology, serving as the home for student organizing within Center of Agroecology, and bridge-building between the center and the campus community. FSWG has hosted a wide variety of student organizations and projects, and currently contains a balance of land-based student projects, student activist projects, and student leaders focused on addressing food insecurity on our campus.
FSWG is comprised of the following projects and groups:
Real Food Calculator
The Real Food Calculator is a revolutionary tool students use to audit their campus’ dining purchasing. Built around our Real Food Standards, the Real Food Calculator is still the first and only web application of its kind - students collect invoices from their school’s dining manager, research the invoice line items against our Standards, and input their research into our Calculator application, which analyzes their campus’ purchasing patterns.
Demeter Seed Library
The Demeter Seed Library's mission is to preserve and breed locally adapted cultivars and seed varieties in California Central Coast. Our objective is to help gardeners and farmers access seeds and educate youth and community members about the importance of biodiversity in our agricultural systems. The library is located in room 307 of the Oakes Administration building at UCSC.
Food Access and Basic Needs Team
FSWG’s Food Access & Basic Needs team includes a number of students working with a myriad of organizations and groups working to address food insecurity at UCSC, including 5 Produce Pop-Up Coordinators, 4 Cowell Coffee Shop Co-leads, 1 Cowell Coffee Shop Programming Lead, 1 Basic Needs Communication Lead, 2 folks from the Slug Support Ambassador Program: Pantry Ambassador & CalFresh Ambassador, 4 Slugs in the Kitchen Coordinators, 3 Farm to Campus Field students.
