Campus Gardens

UC Berkeley is home to five urban gardens that produce food, preserve native ecosystems, increase biodiversity and create cultural and community space:

• • Campus Ecological Action and Sustainable Design Gardens
  • Casa Zimbabwe Garden 
  • Clark Kerr Garden
  • MCC Healing and Learning Garden
  • Faculty and Staff Community Garden

Gardens on campus play a unique role in the field of urban agriculture and provide many benefits to our campus community, including:

1. 1. Campus gardens create micro-scale food systems that can help address student food insecurity. (Many of our gardens harvest produce for the campus food pantry as well as nutrition and cooking skills programs. Check out the Basic Needs Center for more information.)
   2. They offer spaces for experiential education and increase food systems literacy.
   3. They provide green space in an otherwise urban landscape.
   4. They help facilitate interdisciplinary research, collaboration and land use decision-making.
   5. Finally, campus gardens create spaces for our campus community to interact with nature, food, one another and the urban agriculture movement at large. 

Students, with some support from UC Berkeley faculty and staff, are involved in the design, implementation, maintenance and programming of campus gardens.  

Berkeley Student Farms

The Berkeley Student Farms coalition is a transparent and democratic student-led and community-based organization that utilizes ecological land management to create a network of sites dedicated to anti-oppression and student basic needs.

Berkeley Student Farms hosts open hours at various campus gardens. Visit the BSF Instagram below for information on open hours and events or download the BSF calendar to your Google calendar.

BFI’s Agroecology Program

Through our Agroecology Program based at Oxford Tract, BFI provides land-based educational and career opportunities for students interested in urban agroecology. We work in collaboration with Berkeley Student Farms. If you are interested in learning more about urban agroecology or how to grow food at Oxford Tract, please email us at foodinstitute@berkley.edu.

Other volunteer or internship opportunities

• • Re:wild Your Campus (formerly Herbicide Free Campus) hosts community work days.
  • UC Botanical Garden offers various volunteer positions including garden ambassadors, propagators, curation, docent and more.
  • Gill Tract Community Farm holds open volunteer hours and occasionally provides internships, research opportunities or public workshops.
  • UC Berkeley Basic Needs Center offers internship opportunities every year that support their efforts on campus.

More campus garden resources

Urban Agriculture Resource Guides

The following resources are meant for anyone looking to start an urban garden in the Bay Area:

• • Campus Gardens Handbook
  • 2018 Gardening in the East Bay: A Quick Guide to Local Resources
  • Bay Area Urban Farming Resource Guide

Campus Garden Toolkits

In 2018, BFI collaborated with partners at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz to expand opportunities for experiential learning on campus farms and gardens. Funded through the UC Global Food Initiative, the three campuses increased programming, improved coordination between garden spaces and initiated off-campus garden internship programs in local public schools. With representation from UC Davis’ Student Farm, UC Santa Cruz’s Farm and Garden and UC Berkeley’s network of urban farms and gardens, each partner contributed unique and valuable knowledge. The team created three toolkits, intended as practical guides for campuses interested in starting and/or expanding similar programs:

• • From Seed to Food Security: Integrating Student Agriculture with Basic Needs Security
  • When Students Lead: The Leadership Development Training Program Toolkit
  • Engaging University Students in Local School Gardens: a Toolkit for School Districts, School Garden Support Organizations and Universities