March 28, 2017This event, co-sponsored by Berkeley Food Institute and American University, brought together academics, civil society leaders, policymakers, producers and the general public to present and discuss original research both on and for the US Farm Bill, across and beyond disciplines. Videos Below are videos of three of the panel discussions held throughout the day.…
March 27, 2017 Sustainable Agriculture Research in the Next Farm Bill Agriculture and related industries contributed $985 billion to the US GDP in 2014. How will research keep up with demand, particularly in sustainable agriculture, one of the fastest-growing parts of the farm economy? Leading up to BFI’s Farm Bill Symposium, scholars from four diverse universities discussed…
March 23, 2017 Professor Nathan Sayre on his new book, The Politics of Scale: A History of Rangeland Science Scientists today recognize the flaws of old ideas about rangeland ecology, but the broader public (and especially many environmental activists) continue to believe that (a) livestock are the root cause of rangeland degradation, everywhere and always,…
March 15, 2017 By Carolina Prado, Graduate Student in ESPM, UC Berkeley In summer of 2016 I received a community engagement fellowship through the Berkeley Food Institute. I partnered with Phat Beet Produce, an Oakland based food justice organization that works on creating access to healthy produce in the city on a restorative economics model.…
March 2, 2017 By Nina F. Ichikawa This week was the biannual summit of the California Climate & Agriculture Network (CalCAN).* This coalition of farms, advocacy organizations, scientists, and policy experts seeks to advance climate solutions through sustainable and organic agriculture. When I first participated in CalCAN’s summit two years ago, I was struck by…
February 28, 2017 Civil Eats recently published an article highlighting efforts across the ten University of California (UC) campuses to increase the amount of sustainable food purchased by university food services. According to its 2016 Annual Report on Sustainable Practices, the UC system has already met its 2020 goal of procuring 20% of its food from…