CASFS - UC Santa Cruz

My first day on my first visit - it was awesome. The campus setting is just amazing - a huge area of wide open grass land savanna, conifer forests, and oak woodlands high above the Monterey Bay (click here for a video tour) . The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) I visited is a 25 acre site on the lower campus (pictured above). Ten acres are under cultivation, 5 acres in annual row crops and 5 in fruit trees and other perennial crops. The farm and gardens of the center are used as a training area for undergraduate and graduate students, for teachers, and for new farmers. On this first day I was mostly interested in learning about the apprenticeship program in Ecological Horticulture which provides "training in the concepts and practices of organic gardening and small-scale farming." I went on tour with Jonathon Landeck, Assistant Director of the Center.

The apprenticeship program is a significant part of the Center's activities and has a total operating budget of over $700.000. Half of the budget comes from the tuition and sales and the other half has to be raised by the center staff from foundations and other donors. This effort allows the center to train 35-40 apprentices during a 6 month intensive training program. They receive usually more than 200 applications for those few spots. Serving as instructors and supervisors during 700 hours in the field are 2 farm managers, 3 site managers and 7 student mentors. 300 hours of formal education is done in part by the center staff but mostly by outside experts. The apprentices and farm staff run a CSA (community supported agriculture) program with 130 community members and they also have a roadside stand where they learn to sell produce and interact with customers.

It is clear that to pull something like this apprenticeship program off at LBCC we would need a lot of collaboration with other institutions and organizations. Our model might be different though and we may start small and see how it develops.

I am very much looking forward to tomorrow's visit of the LifeLab, an organization that helps schools develop learning gardens. I will also look at the Horticulture Program at Cabrillo College.