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LinkedInPosts Tagged: UC Santa Cruz
In Drinking Your Cup of Joe, Do You Ever Think About Coffee Plantation Pests?
When you're drinking your daily cup of Joe to power your day, do you ever think about coffee...
The coffee borer beetle, also known as the coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei. (Courtesy of L. Shyamal, Wikipedia)
Why Vector-Borne Diseases Remain a Key Threat to Human Health
"Vector-borne diseases remain a key threat to human health, wildlife, and plants, in part, due to...
This Culex mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, transmits West Nile virus and other viruses. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC student farms seed innovation
In 1971, student enthusiasm for a garden at UC Santa Cruz that used natural cultivation methods grew so much so that 14 acres were set aside for the UC Santa Cruz Farm and Garden to create more opportunities to research and teach organic farming. Meanwhile, a student-led seminar at UC Davis on alternative agriculture mushroomed into a group that lobbied campus administration for land to create a farm that would explore sustainable agriculture. With support from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Science, the UC Davis Student Farm formed in 1977 on 20 acres of what was then a remote corner of campus.
In the decades that followed, these student-led movements helped spur the growth of organic farming and formed the foundations for innovative sustainable agriculture research and education programs at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz that have served as models for other universities.
Read more and view slideshow at UC Newsroom
Growing organic farmers
Well bef
The UC Santa Cruz Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture started in 1967 when the concept of organic was in its infancy. Forty-three years later, organic has gone mainstream and the apprenticeship program is more popular than ever.
A recently published study looking at the apprenticeship’s last 20 years found that a large percentage of its alumni are still involved in growing and marketing organic food and teaching others how to do so.
“It’s like an incubator,” said lead study author Jan Perez, research specialist with the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. “It’s a place for people to really experiment and live their values and be in a supportive community.”
The six-month residential apprenticeship program, which the center runs in conjunction with UC Santa Cruz Extension, features hands-on training in gardens, greenhouses, orchards and fields. The program combines theoretical and practical instruction, with students not only studying in the classroom but also taking fields trips and marketing organic produce on campus.
Of 299 alumni surveyed, more than 80 percent have done some type of farming or gardening work since graduating, with 65 percent still doing this work. Forty-two percent said they created jobs that did not previously exist and 35 percent are working in an educational area, according to the study in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.
For example, two apprentice alumni started Pie Ranch, a working Peninsula farm that educates high school students from San Francisco to Santa Cruz about sustainable agriculture. The farm, which grows ingredients for pies on its pie-shaped ranch, even has its own apprenticeship program.
“They’re really spreading what they’ve learned,” Perez said.
Meanwhile, interest continues to spread in the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture. Last year, applications rose to 187 for more than 30 slots. This year’s application period closed Thursday (Sept. 30).
The apprenticeship program takes place at UC Santa Cruz's farm and Chadwick Garden
