What do UCSC and CASFS stand for? University of California, Santa Cruz and Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems. The two go hand-in-hand.
Located on the UCSC campus, CASFS ~ dedicated to increasing ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agricultural system ~ manages the 2-acre Alan Chadwick Garden and the 25-acre UCSC Farm, featuring field-scale agriculture, orchards, and hand-dug garden beds. Both venues provide students with not only the chance to learn organic gardening techniques, but the opportunity of a lifetime to participate in research, education, and public service. Each year the larger community is invited up to the Farm for a Harvest Festival to share the fruits of their labor.
The 2010 festival (September 26) was blessed with sunny skies and healthy attendance. Kids had fun petting the goats, face-painting, taking a hayride, dancing to the live music, crushing apples for cider, and, when it got too hot, dousing themselves under the mister.
Adults liked the U-Pick Sunflowers, cooking/gardening demos, and farm tours.
Strolling through the expansive fields and seeing the abundance of food growing everywhere, it is easy to believe that scarcity is a myth and that the Earth generously provides for all. In fact, Canadian physician, activist, and author Susan Rosenthal shows how this is true and how, under a social system designed to meet human need, no one would go hungry.
Roasted peppers and corn-on-the-cob, wood-oven pizza, Cuban plates, farm-grown watermelon, apple pie, and apples, apples, apples ~ over 20 kinds ~ enticed our palate. Our favorite apple was a variety we’d never heard of: Freyburg (labeled “aromatic with hints of mango and banana”), a type of Pippin. Always something new to discover on the Farm.
Some revelers, to ensure that the simple joys of the day would linger into the coming week, took home succulent farm-grown tomatoes, crook-necked squash, or bright-orange pumpkins for pies and Halloween. What a treat!
For additional information ~ including research briefs, tips for the gardener, and recipes ~ and to sign up to receive their newsletter, visit the CASFS website.
If you liked this post, you might also enjoy Sweet Sustainability and Touch The Earth.
