Agricultural Sustainability Institute

The Agricultural Sustainability Institute, with the support of Mars, Inc, is launching a new initiative to improve the sustainability of global agricultural raw materials sourcing, with particular emphasis on key commodities.  The institute is searching for two postdoctoral researchers to assist in this endeavor.

Find out more about the positions.

The UC Davis campus is the place to be Saturday, April 21.

Join the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis for one of the largest student-run events in the nation – Picnic Day.

The institute will be giving out organic basil plants grown by students at the UC Davis Student Farm – a campus-based program within the institute that was founded in 1978.

Drop by the institute’s booth at Robbins Hall. Take home a basil plant, and learn more about food sustainability.

Tom Tomich writing featured on Huffington Post and SacBee.

ASI Director Tom Tomich wrote about the ways that California can move forward with "no regrets" strategies regarding climate change, even with the failures of the Copenhagen summit earlier at the end of the year. The piece has garnered a lot of response on The Huffington Post and on sacbee.com. Check out both versions below and feel free to retweet them or comment on them

Tom Tomich on sacbee.com

New members have been appointed by UC ANR VP Barbara Allen-Diaz to the advisory panel for the Sustainable Food Systems Strategic Initiative, announced Rose Hayden-Smith, initiative leader. 

Among these new members are Tom Tomich, director of ASI and UC SAREP and ASI affiliated faculty member Ermias Kebreab, professor in the department of Animal Science at UC Davis and Sesnon Endowed Chair in sustainable agriculture. 

Areas covered in the SFS initiative include:

AGree, a new initiative to transform food and agricultural policy, unveiled the members of both its advisory and research committees this summer.  ASI External Advisory Board members A.G. Kawamura and Judith Redmont will both serve on AGree's advisory committee.

ASI Director Tom Tomich was named to AGree's research committee, which provides expert advice to help AGree develop effective policy solutions.  

Nitrogen is a key ingredient in life on earth, but despite its importance, most people don’t think about it much. Nitrogen is key to productive plant growth in crop production systems as well as other ecosystems, and nitrogen fertilizer is vital to the way many farmers grow the vast quantities of food we eat. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that some of the ways we use nitrogen in agriculture lead to problems in the environment and with human health.

The UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences seeks to hire an assistant Professor in Plant Sciences who would be affiliated with ASI.

The first in a series of webinars focused on the science of sustainability at the University of California is now available. Watch the video by clicking the image below.

• Sustainability: What does it mean?
• Is there a “sustainability science”?
• What is at stake?

Speaker: Tom Tomich