Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

Fellow Story

Gonella on Santa Barbara City College's organic garden

“The department and its instructional garden are focused primarily on teaching sustainable landscaping and gardening options,” says Michael Gonella, chair of the Environmental Horticulture Department at the college. “This vegetable garden will be a key element in the garden and will demonstrate integration of sustainable principles including organic soil care, composting and use of organic compost, water efficiency and food production.” Read the full story
July 13, 2012
Fellow Story

Krupnik speaks at workshop to promote conservation agriculture in Bangladesh

Speakers at a workshop said here on Friday that substantial and sustainable promotion of conservation agriculture is very vital for making the soil health fit for boosting crop production to ensure food security of the nation. Read the full story
July 4, 2012
Fellow Story

Chile's Salmon Aquaculture Industry

2011 Switzer Fellow Kelsey Jacobsen's research focuses on Chile's Salmon Aquaculture Industry. Hear how she is working with local governments to ensure safe aquaculture practices for years to come.
July 3, 2012
Fellow Story

Mersha on land occupation as a strategy for agrarian reform in South Africa

In South Africa, land occupation is expanding as a strategy for achieving genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty and climate justice. Since these are all critical issues for people living in cities, land occupations in both urban and rural areas are an important, and often unrecognized, part of global movements. Read the full article
July 3, 2012
Fellow Story

Beal develops lobster aquaculture method that may help increase wild stocks

But Beal says he has come up with a better way to grow lobsters in captivity. Through trial and error over several years, he has learned how to grow lobsters in a protected environment until they are several inches long — not big enough to be sold, but big enough to settle to the bottom when they are released and possibly to improve their survival rate. Read the full story
June 27, 2012
Fellow Story

Fernández-Giménez on effects of climate change on Mongolian cashmere herders

María Fernández-Giménez, a rangeland specialist and associate professor at Colorado State University who has been observing environmental trends in Bayankhongor since 1994, believes that if there is a demonstrated market for "sustainable cashmere,” herders might change their practices. She envisions herders breeding fewer, but higher-quality goats and participating in monitoring to certify their products as organic and fair-trade, which would fetch a higher price for the wool.
June 26, 2012
Fellow Story

Vorster quoted on EPA finding that Bay Area waterways more polluted than previously thought

Hydrogeographers such as Peter Vorster of the Bay Institute are on one side. KTVU met him along the last stretch of the wild San Joaquin River, arguably the most desiccated -- and desecrated -- major river in California. "This has a lot of salts in it from the agricultural runoff, Vorster remarked. "The water that would have been in here, a lot of it has been diverted to make these fields grow these amazing crops. The San Joaquin Valley is the most productive agricultural region, arguably, in the world."
June 26, 2012
Fellow Story

Balazs's work with contamination of minorities' drinking water featured

“We were in Seville last week doing survey work and heard about people getting boil notices when there’s bacteria,” said Balazs, who joined the Community Water Center as a staff scientist after completing her Ph.D at UC Berkeley. “But one of the worst things you can do is boil water when there are nitrates. It just concentrates them.” Read the full story
June 20, 2012
Fellow

Ildi Cummins

2012 Fellow
Ildi is currently directing a project called Cal Ag Roots, which is supported by a Switzer Leadership Grant, at the California Institute for Rural Studies. Cal Ag Roots is designed to put historical roots under current food systems change...
Fellow

Noa Lincoln

2012 Fellow
Noa Kekuewa Lincoln exhibits a passion for life that keeps him energetically engaged in a broad range of communities. Born and raised in Hawaii he connects strongly with the Hawaiian culture, which places environment at the core of human...