Month: April 2025

The Center’s latest research brief, Farming the College Market: Results of a Consumer Study at UC Santa Cruz, by CASFS social issues associate specialist Jan Perez and social issues specialist Patricia Allen, examines student, staff, and faculty’s food-related concerns, interests, and level of support for specific food criteria, including whether they would be willing to pay more for food produced in an organic and “socially just” manner. Write the authors, “Since the success of farm-to-college programs involves their ability to meet the needs of campus consumers, we undertook a study of our local campus . . . to learn about the perspectives and preferences of campus food consumers.” Perez worked with members of the campus’s Food Systems Working Group, including UCSC Dining Services, Community Agroecology Network, and Students for Organic Solutions, to develop a web-based survey designed to find out what the UCSC community thinks about food system issues. Those responding to the survey included students , staff , and faculty . Based on the online survey, the study found that food issues are important to the UCSC community, particularly regarding concerns for the environment and for people. Key points from this study include: There is significant interest in campus food that is nutritious, safe, supports workers, and is environmentally sound; interest in local food and GE-free food is lower. People are interested in sustainably produced food and a majority of people already purchase food with labels based on these criteria. Many people are willing to pay more for food that meets social justice criteria. A campus community is likely to be receptive to education and discussion about food-system issues. Since people had a great interest in nutrition and food safety, square pots for plants framing discussions of food-system issues in terms of health will meet people’s needs as well as capture their attention for education on other food-system issues, such as working conditions and the environment.

The authors conclude that, “[Although] It would not be appropriate to extrapolate too much from a study of one campus . . . the results of the UC Santa Cruz study support the idea that colleges and universities are excellent choices for developing farm-to-institution programs and for popular education on food-system issues.” A similar survey was recently distributed to a nationwide audience as part of CASFS research on farm-to-institution programs .Finding a non-fumigant alternative to the soil fumigant methyl bromide has been identified as a top priority by the California Strawberry Commission, and by growers who are facing the phase out of this ozone-depleting pesticide. However, most current state and federal research is focused on alternative fumigants rather than non-fumigant techniques to control soil diseases, weed seeds, and harmful nematodes. Preliminary research conducted at the UCSC Farm has shown promising results with an alternative approach that starves pathogens and weeds of oxygen. Researchers introduce a carbon source such as chopped cover crops, wheat bran, or molasses to the strawberry bed, then irrigate and tarp the beds to create temporary anaerobic conditions. This technique, known as anaerobic soil disinfestation , has been tested for the past several seasons at the Farm and has been shown to control the soil pathogen Verticillium dahliae, a major diseases of strawberries. A new study, funded by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, will expand this initial work to examine the efficacy of various carbon sources, irrigation techniques, tarp types, and tarping periods to create sufficient anaerobic conditions to control weed seed germination and V. dahliae. The study, conducted by environmental studies professor Carol Shennan, UCSC researcher Joji Muramoto, and colleagues from California and Florida, will also look at using the technique to control diseases, pests, and weeds in Florida cropping systems, which also rely on methyl bromide. The three-year study will take place on conventional farms so that results can be compared to those obtained with standard methyl bromide fumigation.

Following an initial year of field trials in Watsonville and Oxnard, the research team will consult with local growers to determine which ASD options hold promise for larger-scale commercial application.Patricia Allen has been named director of UCSC’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems by Social Sciences Dean Sheldon Kamieniecki. Allen, whose appointment took effect July 1, 2007, had been serving as acting director since January 2007. She joined the campus’s Agroecology Program in 1984. She takes the helm from Carol Shennan, CASFS director for the past 10 years. Following her 2007 sabbatical, Shennan will continue at UCSC as a professor in the Environmental Studies Department. Allen is one of the nation’s leading scholars on the social aspects of sustainable food systems. Her work addresses issues such as labor, gender, and access to food. She is the author of Together at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American Agrifood System and editor of Food for the Future: Conditions and Contradictions of Sustainability . Allen earned a B.S. in political economy of natural resources from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in international agricultural development from UC Davis, and a Ph.D. in sociology from UCSC in 1998.In the world of sustainable agriculture, it doesn’t get any better than the “Sustie” award, and the UCSC Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture took home the top honor at this year’s Ecological Farming Conference. Established in 1988, the “Sustie” award is presented each year by the Ecological Farming Association to “stewards of sustainable agriculture” who have made a significant contribution to the well-being of farming and the planet. Past recipients include chef Alice Waters, publisher Robert Rodale, and several graduates of the apprenticeship itself. UCSC Farm manager Jim Leap and apprenticeship coordinator Diane Nichols accepted the Sustie on behalf of the apprenticeship during the conference’s awards banquet on January 26 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove. “There are more than 25 extremely motivated and dedicated individuals who are instrumental in making the training what it is each year,” said Leap. “All of us work collectively to teach and train and run the UCSC Farm, and it is all of us who will be sharing in the acknowledgment that this award represents.” The apprenticeship, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, is the nation’s premier hands-on training program in organic farming and gardening. Widely regarded as one of the most significant influences in the growth of sustainable agriculture, the six-month full-time program has prepared more than 1,200 graduates who have spread their expertise throughout the world. “There’s simply nothing that compares to the apprenticeship for the depth of its program or the breadth of its impact,” said Sheldon Kamieniecki, dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCSC, who attended the awards banquet. Graduates of the apprenticeship go on to operate commercial farms and market gardens, run community and school gardens, and work at the forefront of international development, food policy, and social justice programs. The impact of the apprenticeship is apparent in the number of graduates who have received Sustie awards, including Cathrine Sneed of The Garden Project in San Francisco; Wendy Johnson, garden manager at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County; Jim Nelson of Camp Joy Gardens in Boulder Creek; Gloria and Steven Decater of Live Power Community Farm in Covelo, CA; Orin Martin, manager of the Alan Chadwick Garden at UCSC; and Kay Thornley, who helped launch UCSC’s Agroecology Program.

Its success is also evident in the number of similar college-based farm-training programs sprouting up at the University of Georgia, Michigan State University, Washington State University, the University of Montana, and other campuses.Perhaps an overview statement might be helpful—let’s define terms. The French intensive, raised bed style of gardening is a handworked system featuring deep cultivation . This technique’s primary effect is on the physical properties of a soil: the aim is to rapidly improve soil structure and fertility. Improved physical properties can positively influence the biological and chemical properties of a soil as well. The main idea is to create a well-drained, well-aerated, large square plant pots fertile soil structure by digging deeply and placing nutrients at specific levels. This gives rise to a profile that enables plant roots to probe/penetrate throughout the bed with ease, especially in a downward direction. Such an arrangement has a continuous system of large and intermediate pore spaces from the surface to the subsoil. Plants’ needs for air, water and nutrients are best met with such a continuous system of pores. The French intensive system is not appropriate in all soils and in all climatic situations. For instance, on deep, improved soils, it’s superfluous, even deleterious. On sandy soils and in hot, windy situations it can “burn up” precious organic matter and cause water losses both through surface evaporation and excessive drainage. As is so often the case in life, there are no panaceas, but we tend to be creatures of habits, creatures of dosages; that is, we want to do the same thing in the same way, with the same amount, repeatedly. The judicious use of deep digging for a few years to develop a soil, followed by lighter, less disruptive surface cultivation and perhaps periodic renewal via deep digging again might be more prudent. Caveat emptor: Digging is a radical act, potentially destructive of soil structure and biological processes Do it skillfully and as infrequently as possible! Conventional wisdom often states that it can take 1,000–2,000 years for 1 foot of topsoil to develop in place. With French intensive it is possible to simulate the creation of 1 foot of topsoil in 3–5 years .Often when people hear French intensive, they automatically think of raised beds. In fact, the beds may be raised slightly or in an exaggerated sense , flat, or even sunken. The degree of “loft” is a function of climate, soil type, and seasonal weather. On a transect from Seattle to Santa Cruz to Santa Fe, the response might be: 1) Seattle, with its high annual rainfall and cool temperatures, can have dark soils with high organic matter and high clay content, and a tendency to remain cold and wet. Thus a raised bed would yield better growth, allowing the soil to warm more quickly. Santa Cruz, with its mild Mediterranean climate, dry summers and wet winters would feature a slightly raised bed during the rainy season and an almost flat bed in summer. Santa Fe might yield a flat or even sunken bed for water catchment, to minimize water loss and afford protection from wind. Permanent beds, be they raised or flat, substantially reduce soil compaction. The bed equals the zone of maximum fertility—you could say “Don’t tread on me,” or only minimally and lightly. The path equals the zone of degradation, with much foot traffic and resultant compaction. Permanent beds foster maintenance of ideal soil structure. While compaction is a primary problem in mechanized agriculture, it can be virtually eliminated in handworked permanent bed systems. In agriculture, it can be said that the back of the tractor is simply undoing the work of the front of the tractor. Some common causes of soil compaction are: ploughing—a “plow pan” develops just below the depth of tillage; 2) machine and foot traffic —the bigger the machine, the greater the number of passes, the greater the compaction; 3) the pounding action of rain drops on open soil, which can destroy surface soil aggregates and lead to crusting and erosion. Natural forces also cause compaction—over time, the fine particles of clay leach downward, accumulate in layers, and create subsurface compaction or a hard pan. Compaction can be measured by an increase in bulk density. It includes pore space as well as solids. It is distinct from particle density, which simply measures the weight of a soil as if there were no pore spaces. Permanent beds also focus efficient placement of fertilizers/nutrients only where plants will be growing.The Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture is one step closer to finally building permanent apprentice housing on the UCSC Farm, thanks to long-time Friends’ member Olivia Boyce-Abel. When the campus approved the plans for eight 4-room cabins, the price tag that came with it was $487,000. Boyce-Abel not only pledged $40,000 from her obaboa Foundation for the project but also offered to help inspire other former apprentices and program supporters to give. She has put out a challenge that so far has more than matched her $40,000, with a total of $85,000 raised to date.

But the fence removed herders and dogs as well as predators, and over the course of the summer, “the sheep gradually became accustomed to free, unmolested grazing, and forgot the habits learned when herded” . They formed smaller bunches, both while grazing and also to sleep at night, and they moved more lightly over the landscape. “The result was that little or no damage was done to the forage crop in this way. The entire crop was eaten and not wasted” .By weighing twenty lambs “of average size” at the beginning and end of the experiment, and collecting similar data from bands herded on the range nearby, Jardine was able to compare animal performance under the two systems. In 88 days inside the fence, the pastured sheep gained an average of 20 pounds, whereas those from a band on the outside gained only 15 pounds, on average, in 96 days. Overall losses among four outside herds ranged from 1.4 to 3 percent, compared with just 0.5 percent for the fenced herd. Finally, the fenced sheep required only 0.0156 acres per sheep per day. Three open range herds, roughly estimated, required 64-123 percent more acreage, which Jardine attributed to the effects of trampling. “It is safe to conclude that range grazed under the pasturage system will carry 50 per cent more sheep than when grazed under the herding system, where the band is driven to and from camp each day” . In the closing pages of his report for the 1908 season, Jardine took up the economic question: “Will the pasturage system pay?” Here he faced a difficulty, because the coyote-proof pasture had been very expensive to construct: $6,764.31, to be precise, blueberry package including more than $2,000 in materials, $1,000 in transportation costs, and $1,000 to clear heavy timber from portions of the fence line .

This amounted to nearly $850 per mile . Jardine chose not to use these figures, however, arguing that the location was exceptionally remote and heavily timbered. Using more general estimates, he calculated that “the cost on most grazing lands will approach very closely $400 amile” . He then tabulated the financial benefits in increased carrying capacity, heavier sheep, reduced losses to predation, and lower labor costs. Not counting increases in the lamb crop and in the amount and quality of wool , Jardine arrived at an annual return of $746.50, based on a herd of 2,200 sheep in a 2,560-acre pasture for three months. Thus, an initial investment of $3,200 , at 8 percent interest and including maintenance, would pay for itself and begin yielding dividends after six years. He did not include the costs of the hunter in his analysis. The experiment was repeated in 1909 with 2,040 sheep enclosed in the pasture for 99 days, during which time only four perished. The results were nearly identical to those from 1908, although Jardine’s report was more detailed and more emphatic in its declarations of the virtues of “the pasturage system.” The hunter killed one grizzly, two badgers, seven brown bears and seven coyotes , and just one brown bear and three badgers managed to breach the fence . The sheep again displayed a gradual tendency “to depart from their old habits and accommodate themselves to the freedom of the pasture,” so much so that by the end of the season “it was almost impossible to keep them close bunched without a dog” . Losses to poisonous plants, as well as predators, were higher among sheep herded outside the enclosure, and the pastured sheep were again heavier at the end of the season than the herded sheep .

Acreage required per sheep perday was 52-90 percent higher outside the fence, although Jardine attributed some of this to poor quality herders . The issue of herder skill presented a puzzle, which Jardine acknowledged but failed to address directly. “A first-class herder will work all the time” and seldom use a dog, resulting in “quiet, scattered grazing that may approach the pasturage system in efficiency” , whereas “a lazy man…will wear out his dogs, worry the sheep, and destroy the forage” . With respect to weight gain, “there is as much difference in the results obtained by a first-class herder and those obtained by a poor herder as there is between the results under the pasturage system and those secured by the good herder” . And while “range grazed under the pasturage system will carry from 25 to 50 per cent more sheep than when grazed under the herding system,” it was also possible “that an excellent herder can, to a considerable extent, allow his sheep freedom and keep them quiet, thereby increasing the carrying capacity of his range. No doubt there are herders who do this” . All told, “the carrying capacity of the same range utilized by different herders may vary at least 25 per cent” . These were potentially troublesome admissions to make, for both scientific and economic reasons. Herder skill was clearly an important variable in sheep performance, but it was one that Jardine could neither measure nor control. Removing herders might thus be seen as necessary to a properly “scientific”assessment of range grazing. And it could clearly affect any calculation of the economic rationality of building fences and controlling predators. What if better training for herders were a more economical solution?

Instead of confronting these issues, Jardine reverted to general claims about labor needs under the pasturage system, superseding by half the estimate that King had given to Coville two years earlier: “It is probable that one energetic man…can properly care for four inclosures similar to the experimental coyote-proof pasture,” meaning “one man would care for from 8,000 to 10,000 head of sheep” . Notwithstanding these problems, Jardine reached the same conclusions in 1909 as he had the year before. “When left unmolested by herders and dogs in an area protected against destructive animals, a band of ewes and lambs will accommodate themselves to the freedom of such a system and will separate into small bunches, coming together occasionally but again separating. With few exceptions they will graze openly and quietly” . Losses will be slight, weight gain and wool clip will improve, carrying capacity will increase by 25-50 percent, and labor costs “will not exceed 25 per cent of the cost under the herding system” . Although he did not present numbers for 1909, he again concluded that “the increase in carrying capacity and decrease in expense of handling in pasture during the lambing season will justifly the cost of construction necessary to inclose [sic] the entire allotment” . The Wallowa experiment was hailed as a remarkable success, and the Forest Service quickly embraced it as guidance for the administration and management of rangelands generally. It appeared to solve numerous problems and satisfly everyone, provided one ignored or excluded the herders. In his “Annual Report to the Forester for the Fiscal Year 1909-1910” for the Branch of Grazing, Potter described the results as “very gratiflying” and summarized them as follows: “The primary objects of the experiment have been accomplished, i.e., it has been demonstrated that the grazing capacity of the Forest lands can be largely increased by improved methods of handling stock, and that the increased cost of such methods, if any, is offset by increases in the number and weight of lambs raised, heavier wool crops, and reduced losses from predatory animals” . Notably, Potter omitted any reference to labor costs in his summation. He suggested that the results be applied “to spring and fall or yearlong ranges” in other national forests. Elsewhere in his report, Potter tabulated the accomplishments of Forest Service personnel assigned to predator control: 269 bears, 129 wolves, 148 wolf pups, 1,155 wildcats, and more than 7,000 coyotes killed in the 11 western states, “an increase of 109 per cent over the number of animals destroyed last year” and representing “a total saving to stockmen of considerably more than one million dollars per year” .A critical physical geography of the Coyote-Proof Pasture Experiment reveals two important insights. First, blueberry packaging the institutional context in which science is practiced may be at least as important as the experiments and findings that the scientists produce. Livingstone has shown the importance of place to the conduct of science, and the geographical particulars—both social and ecological—of the Wallowa site attracted Coville to locate the study there. But the larger context was a national one, and in this case, not only did it shape the questions that were asked and define the terms of success, but the success caused the institutional context itself to change, setting in motion a path dependency for subsequent research and management of rangelands elsewhere.

The particularities of the Wallowa site were abstracted away so that the results could be taken as relevant to rangelands throughout the western US. Second, although the findings of the experiments were presented as scientifically robust, ecological facts—in which predators, livestock, fences, and vegetation interacted in measurable ways—the methods were weak and the ultimate metric for evaluating success was actually an economic one. Costs and returns, and thus profit on investment, determined whether fencing and predator control were worth implementing. In this calculus, the decisive factor was neither fences nor livestock performance but rather the labor of herders. The high cost of fencing could be justified economically only if the fences greatly reduced the need for herders—and in the absence of herders to protect livestock, predators would have to be rendered effectively insignificant. What’s more, even the economic analysis was flawed, with key costs either minimized or excluded in order to reach the desired conclusion. By today’s scientific standards, the Coyote-Proof Pasture Experiment was far from impressive. The methods varied in several ways from one year to the next, and they were reliant on qualitative assessments or herder accounts for some important data. The findings were confounded by sheep breeds, herder practices, vegetation types and other variables, and no direct attempt was made to assess the impacts of the pasturage system on vegetation. Moreover, there were no real controls by which to judge the relative effects of the enclosed pasture, the absence of predators, and the absence of herders or dogs as factors influencing the dependent variables . Estimating the carrying capacity outside the fence was imprecise, since those herds were not confined within fixed boundaries. Finally, the economic calculations excluded the costs of the hunter, and didn’t account for the actual costs of the fence. Virtually every finding looks suspiciously similar to the expectations that Coville carried into the experiment in 1907. Moreover, Jardine’s reports were not subject to peer review, but only to the scrutiny of his superiors in the USDA, who themselves appear to have pre-judged the results. There is almost no chance that the experiment would be recognized as publishable, or even scientific, if it were conducted today. The experiment succeeded not on the basis of its scientific rigor, but instead because it lent authority to ideas that were already viewed favorably within the institutional context that gave rise to it. Coville and Jardine produced a set of knowledge claims that appeared to conform to scientific norms of experimentation: the deliberate manipulation of objects, organisms and people, and the careful recording and interpretation of actions and reactions among them. Most of these primary data were of a broadly ecological character, and thus appeared as apolitical and “objective.” The results were translated into economic terms to assess the practicability of implementing a similar management regime on Western rangelands as a whole, and if the economic analysis was at once flawed and decisive, this contradiction would be resolved by government largesse: the cost of both fencing and predator control would be subsidized by an array of federal agencies over the decades to come. Predator control occurred throughout the national forests and beyond, much of it organized and funded by the Bureau of Biological Survey under federal legislation passed in 1914; fencing was underwritten by the Forest Service, the General Land Office’s Grazing Service, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose crews built thousands of miles of fences between 1933 and 1942. Much simpler and cheaper, four-strand barbed wire fences were used—rather than the elaborate Wallowa design—as hunting, trapping, and poisoning reduced predator populations region-wide. If both fencing and predator control were already planned or ongoing, and might well have proceeded without “scientific” support, then the greater significance of the Coyote-Proof Pasture Experiment lies in the ways it altered the institutional context itself, and thereby the trajectory of rangeland administration and research.