The Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, which has helped revitalize small-scale farming by providing hands on training in organic production to more than 1,200 people, including students from Africa, Asia, and across the United States. In addition, UCSC offers the only formal training in community-supported agriculture programs . In January, the apprenticeship received a coveted Steward of Sustainable Agriculture Award from the Ecological Farming Association . The Life Lab Science Program based at the UCSC Farm, which has developed a garden-based science curriculum and worked with more than 1,400 schools across the United States; and a new youth empowerment program located at the UCSC Farm that partners with teenage youth to grow, cook, eat, and distribute healthy, sustainably raised food. The UCSC Food Systems Working Group, a leader of the national farm-to-institution movement that is lobbying schools, colleges, hospitals, and other institutions to buy fresh food from local farmers . UCSC Dining Services is at the forefront of environmentally friendly practices within the UC system and beyond, serving a high percentage of local and organic produce in campus dining halls, recycling used cooking oil, blueberry packing boxes and switching from a national to a local food distribution company to support the local economy and reduce fossil-fuel consumption.
Far-reaching impact on higher education: UC Davis, for example, has incorporated sustainability into its College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, while training manuals and advice from CASFS staff have helped establish campus-based farm education programs across the country, including at Washington State University, Colorado State University, the University of Georgia, the University of Montana, and Michigan State University. This year, CASFS members helped found the National Sustainable Agriculture Education Association to boost the number and quality of such college and university programs . “Today, the hillside where it all began beckons visitors to the Alan Chadwick Garden, and the spirit of innovation that first took root there has infused all that has come since,” says Allen. Throughout this issue of The Cultivar, you’ll find more on how CASFS is continuing its innovative work.Welcome to this special double issue of The Cultivar. Our fortieth anniversary event held this summer sidetracked our spring/summer newsletter, so we’ve rolled two into one to bring you updates on activities taking place at the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems . This issue of The Cultivar reflects the range of innovative work that has evolved at the Center over the past four decades. Our cover article traces the evolution of CASFS from its start as the Student Garden Project to its current leadership role in sustainable agriculture and food systems research, education, and public service. One recent area of focus has been the emerging farm to-institution movement. Besides working to expand the farm-to-college effort on a state and national scale , we are also part of a major social sciences research project evaluating how farm-to-institution programs can better serve the needs of consumers, small- and medium-scale growers, and institutional buyers .
Our efforts aimed at improving organic farming techniques continue to evolve, as we build on methods developed by Center researchers to control pests and diseases in organic strawberry and vegetable crops. Two USDA grants are supporting an expansion of this work in organic systems and an extension of the research to conventional settings, with the goal of cutting pesticide use and finding a viable alternative to methyl bromide . Center members and UCSC students have been integral to a new effort to improve sustainable agriculture education nationwide. The recent founding of the Sustainable Agriculture Education Association and the second national meeting on this topic have recently expanded this work . In collaboration with Cooperative Extension colleagues, the Center also continues to serve small- and medium-scale organic growers through its efforts to identify profitable crop options. This year our organic blueberry trial bore abundant fruit, giving researchers a preliminary look at which varieties might offer local growers a potentially profitable niche crop . Finally, the article on French intensive gardening brings us full circle to the program’s roots—teaching a soil stewardship ethic that builds soil health, conserves resources, and produces an abundance of carefully managed crops. May the coming season be one of abundance for all.The experimental planting of 15 blueberry varieties at the UCSC Farm came back strong after last winter’s freeze, bearing plenty of fruit in late spring and early summer for taste tests, the Farm and Garden’s roadside stand, and Community Supported Agriculture shareholders. Blueberries are a potentially lucrative crop for small-scale organic growers—a successful organic crop can generate $30,000–$50,000 gross, per acre, in direct and retail sales.
UCSC Farm manager Jim Leap, along with UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors Aziz Baameur and Mark Bolda, established the variety trial of 180 plants at the UCSC Farm in January 2004 to find out what varieties would perform best under Central Coast growing conditions. This was the second year that the blueberries had borne fruit; Farm staff stripped flowers the first two cropping seasons to encourage plant establishment. After this year’s harvest, Leap is unequivocal in his enthusiasm for Southmoon, one of 13 southern high-bush varieties being trialed along with 2 northern high-bush varieties. Says Leap, “If you want the grower’s perspective I would have to say, hands down, that for our specific location Southmoon is absolutely number one at this early stage of the trial. Our ‘on farm,’ informal flavor tests conducted this year very clearly placed Southmoon significantly above the other varieties.” Although not the heaviest yielding of the plants in the study , Leap points out Southmoon’s superiority in other important factors that are sometimes difficult to quantifly: ease of harvest, ease of pruning/shaping, and adaptation to climate. “Some of the other varieties are very challenging to harvest due to things like dense foliage [Emerald], a tendency to ‘cling’ to the plant [Bluecrop, Jubilee] and uneven ripening [Oneal],” says Leap. A more formal evaluation by a tasting panel ranked the variety Sharpblue at the top based on both physical and sensory attributes, followed by Jewel , Southmoon, Ozarkblue, and Santa Fe. Baameur notes that all of these data are preliminary and it will take at least another year or two before the research team is ready to make formal recommendations.Many of the varieties aren’t adjusting to the UCSC Farm’s marine-influenced climate. “Right now [October 18th] many varieties are extremely confused about what season they’re in,” says Leap, noting that there are lots of fruiting buds being initiated on some varieties , others have both fruiting buds and blooms , and some varieties have fruiting buds, blooms and fruit . “Only three varieties are actually heading gracefully into dormancy right now. Those are Jewel, Millenniaand Southmoon,” says Leap, though he notes that this trend could potentially vary from year to year based on different chill hours and other factors. The research group has also found that the higher chill requirements for the northern high-bush varieties render them impractical for the Central Coast’s climate. “Interestingly these two varieties are the only two that give the appearance of complete dormancy during the winter,” says Leap. However, the researchers found that the northern varieties tend to set fruit prior to leaf set and the fruit is almost completely tasteless. Thankfully, package of blueberries that wasn’t the case with most of the varieties: the fresh berries were a hit with CSA members and shoppers at the Farm & Garden’s twice-weekly roadside stand. “They were impressed with the amazing flavor of fresh blueberries,” says Leap, who explains that commercially available berries in this area typically come from Chile and Argentina during the winter months and from Oregon and the Central Valley during the early summer months. “That means that the freshly harvested fruit has a distinct advantage in the market,” says Leap.
Although the blueberries that perform well have proved both popular and profitable, the cost of establishing, maintaining, and protecting the plantings may be a deterrent. Getting the soil’s acidity to a level high enough for blueberries to thrive—and keeping it there—is a challenge in a setting such as the UCSC Farm, with its relatively low-acid soil. In a recent California Agriculture article , Leap noted that inexpensive sulfuric acid can be applied to conventionally managed blueberry fields, but he has had to buy vinegar approved by the Organic Materials Review Institute for use in certified organic systems . “We’ve been injecting vinegar with each irrigation. Before we planted, we applied a lot of soil sulfur and acidic soil amendments, but we still need the vinegar, and buying it in 55-gallon containers and trucking them in here might turn out to be prohibitively expensive,” he says. This year Leap also had to put up bird netting to protect the fruit. Despite these drawbacks, Central Coast growers have shown considerable interest in adding blueberries to their cropping systems. Although they’re unlikely to displace the Central Coast’s profitable strawberry and raspberry crops, blueberries could find a profitable niche in smaller, more diversified Central Coast operations for marketing through CSA projects and farmers’ markets. “This would be especially applicable if a site’s soil was naturally acidic to begin with,” says Leap, who notes that given the short production window, blueberries would need to be a small part of a much more diverse cropping system. “I’d recommend blueberries to small-scale organic producers as long as they fully understand the risks, the costs and the challenges.”Schools and universities, hospitals, prisons, and other institutions offer growers a nearly unlimited market for fresh produce and other products. But what’s the best way to access those markets if you’re a grower? If you’re a buyer or chef, how do you develop a purchasing program for local, sustainably grown produce in a way that makes sense for your institution? And how much demand is there for organic food and other sustainable products amongst consumers, such as college students? Those are the types of questions CASFS social issues researchers Patricia Allen and Jan Perez, and project coordinator Gwendolyn Keith are helping address in a two-year study funded by a $400,000 grant from the USDA’s National Research Initiative of the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service . Initiated in fall 2006, this collaborative project includes researchers from the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and members of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers ; along with Allen, Extension Economist Shermain Hardesty of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis co-directs the study. Perez is particularly interested in the demand among college students for food from small and medium-sized farms with sustainability criteria . “Gathering this information helps us to know what kind of support is available for moving these initiatives along, and how to prioritize the criteria,” she says. In a nationwide written survey of college students conducted this year, Perez found a definite interest in organic produce: of the 224 returned surveys from students nationally, 47% said they wanted their college to provide organic food. A small majority of students wanted their college to provide food that is locally grown; fewer were interested in food produced by a small farm. But the highest interest among students was for food that is humanely produced , provides a living wage to workers , and is sustainably produced . In considering these results, Perez notes that, “Student priorities are interesting here, in that ‘organic,’ ‘local’ and ‘small farm’—qualities often promoted by farm-to-institution advocates—are rated somewhat lower on the list of priorities. However, there is still support available for all of these concepts.” Survey results also made clear that there’s a lot of education to be done when it comes to using terms such as “organic” and “sustainable” in outreach efforts to promote sustainable food systems. Says Perez, “Many people don’t realize that these terms actually encompass the environmental and social qualities that they support. I think we need to get specific about those qualities—such as resource protection, support for local economies, and social equity—that are embodied in ‘organic,’ ‘small farm,’ and other criteria, and not just assume people know what these terms represent.”While consumers may be interested in supporting sustainable food systems, it’s the food service buyers who have to translate that interest into action. Hardesty, who is surveying food-service buyers at California colleges and hospitals, found that 28% of the 98 buyers she has interviewed already have a local buying program and 21% are developing one.