Posts Tagged: Mark van Horn
Students play key role in building community around sustainable food systems
“It’s more than a way to sell food. It builds community, and that’s a powerful thing for students to learn,” said Raoul Adamchak, who coordinates the CSA and the Market Garden where the produce is grown.
Over the years, those involved in UC campuses’ food systems have garnered powerful lessons from students as well, resulting in organic gardens, student farms and increasingly sustainable food options at dining halls. These student-initiated components of campus food systems continue to nurture student opportunities to learn and get involved.
While the Student Farm has run its CSA for 16 years, the farm has been a part of the campus food system for 30 years by selling fresh organic produce to the UC Davis Coffee House, which is run by Associated Students, UC Davis. Most recently, it began selling produce to Sodexo-run UC Davis Dining Services – further diversifying its customer base.
“When Dining Services initially wanted to buy from us, we were hesitant,” said Mark Van Horn, director of the Student Farm. “Our CSA was well established and is still our highest grossing market. We’re at the upper limits of production and didn’t think we could grow more without negatively effecting education – the primary purpose of the farm. What changed our minds is that we realized our relationship with them is about education as well as production. We’re collaborating with Dining Services to educate students – more students than ever – about the entire food system.”
“We’re trying to engage students in the food system so they can learn about where their food comes from and what’s in it,” said Dani Lee, UC Davis University Dining Services’ sustainability manager.
Dining Services labels the origin of campus-produced food. It regularly hosts outreach events, features displays about and organizes tours of the Student Farm, Russell Ranch and other campus-based partners. It has also established internships for students interested in waste reduction, gardening and sourcing food more locally.
Lee and Van Horn hope these efforts will help inspire students to learn more.
“We’re seeing more interest from students today than ever before,” Van Horn said. “I attribute it to a bigger cultural awakening catalyzed by folks like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. They figured out that if you talk about agriculture, the environment and the whole food system just as ‘food,’ it’s more interesting. Students are coming in with more knowledge and commitment to these issues than ever before. Encouraging them to get actively involved in the food system is a great way to nurture what students years ago began when they founded the Student Farm, started the Coffee House, and got University of California administrators to commit to meeting a list of sustainability criteria by 2020.”
UC Davis Dining Services already exceeds the UC goal of 20 percent sustainably produced food by 2020, but it isn’t stopping there.
“We’re constantly working on sourcing more products locally,” Lee said.
Lauren Cockrell, a fourth-year UC Davis student majoring in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems is pleased with the trajectory and believes ensuring student involvement in the effort to build a more sustainable food system is key.
“I’d like the next step to be an independent, entirely student-run food retail business that, at its core, values sustainability,” she said.
New college degree: “Sustainable agriculture and food systems”
![Students preparing food baskets at the UC Davis Student Farm (Photo: Ann Filmer) Students preparing food baskets at the UC Davis Student Farm (Photo: Ann Filmer)](http://ucanr.org/blogs/Green/blogfiles/8404.jpg)
As noted in the Los Angeles Times, “With rising public interest in where our food comes from — as well as in "green" living — it makes sense that higher education would be eager to attract students who want to tap into the intersection between these two fields.”
Students will focus on the social, economic, and environmental aspects of agriculture and food — from farm to table and beyond. The program is designed to help students obtain a diversity of knowledge and skills, both in the classroom and through personal experiences on and off campus.
Students will take courses in a broad range of disciplines, but will focus in one of three tracks: Agriculture and Ecology, Food and Society, or Economics and Policy.
“This interdisciplinary curriculum will prepare students to become leaders in agriculture and food systems,” said professor Thomas Tomich, the major adviser for the program and director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.
The major is new, but UC Davis has been covering the subject in field- and classroom-based interdisciplinary learning opportunities at the Student Farm at UC Davis for more than 35 years, said Mark Van Horn, the Student Farm director who will teach a core course in the major.
“Learning through doing and reflection adds a valuable dimension to students’ education because it helps them see the connections between theory and practice in the real world,” Van Horn said.
“This is an exciting addition to the college that reflects a change in how we think about food and agriculture,” said Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “Students will gain a broad perspective of what it takes to put dinner on the table in an era of greater demand and fewer resources.”
For more information:
- Full press release
- UC Davis Student Farm
- UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute
- About the major
New sustainable ag major is a return to UCD’s roots
A new bachelor’s degree program at UC Davis is meant to gives students an understanding of the social, economic and environmental aspects of farming and food systems, reported Cory Golden in the Davis Enterprise. Some of the lessons taught in the program will harken back to the interdisciplinary courses that have been taught at UCD’s Student Farm for more than three decades.
Effective pest control for indoor citrus nursery production
Cary Blake, Western Farm Press
California and Arizona citrus nursery growers are shifting production of critical plants from the outdoors to ‘indoor protective structures’ to gain protection from the Asian citrus psyllid insect and its primary vectored disease Huanglongbing. The change will require growers to adjust to new pest control techniques. “You’ll likely find extra pests indoors that you haven’t dealt with outside including mites and thrips,” said Jim Bethke, UC Cooperative Extension floriculture farm advisor in San Diego County. “It’s very hard to exclude mites with screening material. The screen can exclude the Asian citrus psyllid, but will not keep out thrips.”
Mark Van Horn, director of the Student Farm, gives a UC Davis class a tour of the farm's market garden.
Organic farming gets more research dollars
The 2008 Farm Bill gave organic agriculture a significant boost by increasing funding for organic research from $2 million a year to $20 million, according to an article in the New York Times.
Reporter Jim Robbins outlined some of the research that is underway across the country, opening with work at the UC Davis student farm, where native sunflowers provide a "bed-and-breakfast" for beneficial insects, according to farm director Mark van Horn.
Robbins also described the work of UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Rachael Long, who has studied bats' role in battling codling moth in walnut and apple orchards. According to her research, bats eat their weight in bugs every night.
“They eat a ton of insects,” Long was quoted. “They also eat cucumber beetles and stink bugs, which affect tomatoes.”
Scientists are continuing their research to identify a blend of systems that will grow food and support the natural ecosystem on the farm and beyond.
“That’s the holy grail,” Van Horn told the reporter. “An agricultural system that mimics a natural system.”
Bats help organic farmers by feeding on crop pests.