Summary of discussions from the May Workshop
The participants at the workshop shared their diverse experiences in our agrifood system: successes, challenges and hopes for improvement. Together we identified goals and potential actions to reach those goals that would benefit community health, the environment, and economic prosperity of the county as a whole.
CLICK HERE For the Summary
This is a starting place to gather ideas for community projects and change and we hope people will use it for progress in their own work. We also welcome your feedback on content—email us any comments, corrections or additions.
Localizing Santa Barbara County agrifood systems: research, action and policy.
Friday, 20 May 2011, 12:00p-6:30p
Saturday, 21 May 2011,
8:00a-8:00p
McCune Conference Center (HSSB 6020), UC Santa Barbara
The Santa Barbara County Agrifood Systems Research Group is hosting a workshop at UCSB on the Santa Barbara agrifood system. The agrifood system includes everything from production inputs, on-farm production, distribution, processing, preparation, and consumption, to the effects of such factors on the community, human nutrition, the economy and the environment.
The workshop will bring together participants in the SBC agrifood system (farmers, policy makers, distributors, researchers, and food advocates) to begin moving towards a future for Santa Barbara County and our region that is locally oriented, environmentally sound, socially responsible and economically viable. Our vision is to support the development of a system that encourages and enhances opportunities for small-to-medium sized farmers, minimizes the use of toxic substances, provides living wages and healthy working conditions to farm workers, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, conserves water, and makes nutritious, healthy local food available to all residents.
The goals of the workshop are to share our research, invite open discussion and dialogue among participants, identify key barriers and agree on a key set of strategies for education, research, action and policy.
For Questions or Suggestions, please email: sbc.agrifoodworkshop@gmail.com.
About the SB County Agrifood Systems research group
The SBC AFS research group began in 2009 Fall quarter with funding from the UCSB Academic Senate Sustainability Champion program, and is ongoing. Over 20 undergraduate and graduate students have participated, representing a range of departmental majors, with 10 currently active. Environmental Studies professor David Cleveland is the group mentor. During the first year of the project they documented the fruit and vegetable agrifood system and evaluated the effect of 100% localization. During 2010-11 they are researching scenarios for synergies among improved nutrition, reduced GHGE and strengthened communities.
This is an article on our research: Cleveland, David A., Corie N. Radka, Nora M. Müller, Tyler D. Watson, Nicole J. Rekstein, Hannah van M. Wright, Sydney E. Hollingshead. (2011) The effect of localizing fruit and vegetable consumption on greenhouse gas emissions and nutrition, Santa Barbara County. Environmental Science & Technology 45(10):4555–4562 (© 2011 American Chemical Society).
This is a UCSB press release about the article: UCSB Researchers Find That Localizing Fruit, Vegetable Consumption Doesn't Solve Environmental, Health Issues (© The Regents of the University of California).
This is an article by Karna Hughes about our research: Localize it? UCSB researchers size up the sustainability of the county food system (© 2011 Santa Barbara News-Press).
The workshop is being sponsored by UCSB’s Academic Senate Sustainability Champion Program (funded by The Green Initiative Fund and the Executive Vice Chancellor’s Office), the Environmental Studies Program, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
All pages on this website © 2011 by the SBC AFS Research Group |