As part of a vision to bring community together to learn, share and support, Sustainable Ag & Food Systems students and advisors, along with the Student Farm, have launched a winter 2026 Crowdfund campaign to buy a mobile pizza oven. The oven will be used by Student Farm and SA&FS students at community potlucks, welcome events, and seminars.
The PLANET Seminar (Practical Learning About New Environmental Technologies) is a new seminar series hosted by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Sacramento Valley and the UC Davis Student Farm. This series is geared towards undergraduate and graduate students interested in careers at the intersection of agriculture and environmental science, with a focus on sustainability and emerging technologies that mitigate negative environmental impacts.
"Making Sustainable Agriculture Education Accessible and Building Community"
This fall, Itzel Villagran will be busy. As a 4th year in Sustainable Agriculture and Development and Lead Student Farmer in the Market Garden program, she is a PEAS fellow, conducting field research in soils, and a Green fellow, building community through growing, sharing and teaching about foods important to her and her family.
This summer, Olivia Henry, UC Cooperative Extension Regional Food Systems Advisor, collaborated with the Student Farm Ecological Garden to help us learn more about value-added products, on-farm processing, and the blue elderberry that grow in many places across the farm and that are historical part of California's cultural and ecological systems. Alongside Ecological Garden lead, Julia Schreiber, UCD student Taylor Jones was Olivia's partner in this project. You can read Olivia's report below. Find Taylor's insightful report linked in the bullet point.
UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has a new dean. Though we were sad to lose the leadership of Dean Dillard, stepping down after many years of service to the college, we are excited to welcome Dean Ashley Stokes. She brings a wealth of expertise and leadership experience to the college. In a visit to the Student Farm during her first month on the job, we saw this expertise firsthand, as well as a true care for student experiences and voices - and serious bird-watching skills!
The Student Farm will help host a land-based component of this important course, AAS192: Agriculture, Race & Justice in Black California, offered this coming fall (CRN: 20025). Please share with students and groups who might be interested. Reach out to [email protected] with questions.
The air feels fresher, the soil softer, and everywhere you look, something new is sprouting or blooming. It’s the kind of season that makes you slow down and notice the small things—like the bees hovering over cilantro flowers, or a butterfly weaving through the garden rows. These aren’t just pretty signs of spring. They’re pollinators, and they’re essential to everything we do out here.
Fall 2024 brought with it lots of new faces to the Fresh Focus team, including a new Lead Student Farmer, three new College Core Fellows, and many new interns!
Fall was also a busy quarter for the Fresh Focus team, as we established a new seed saving bed to grow and collect seed from indigenous heirloom plants. Students also stretched their event planning muscles and collaborated with a seed saving library to host a dinner utilizing the crops we grew from heirloom indigenous seeds.
