This grant will be used by the BSFC expand its in-house food prep as a part of its larger mission to increase sustainable food accessibility to the Berkeley campus and community.
The project has three main sections. (1) Part of the grant would go towards covering a portion of the Student Organic Garden Association’s water bill. Currently, the Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management (ESPM) covers half the bill and Professor Tim Bowles’ Berkeley Agroecology Lab covers the other portion. Having the Agroecology Lab help cover this expense has become a financial burden on them with their increasingly limited budget. Increasing SOGA’s economic self-sufficiency is the only way they can continue to distribute agroecological...
Community-led greening projects can benefit through the establishment of a low-cost, accessible native plant nursery that will also serve as a demonstration site where members of the local and student community will learn how to: responsibly harvest native seeds; create plant specific soil or “soil-free” potting mixtures; propagate plants from seed; identify native plants; troubleshoot native plant care. This space will also “bridge the gap” between native ecosystem restoration projects and the local indigenous communities whose ancestors were the original...
The seed library will address a foundational barrier of access to the start-up resources necessary for expanding and sustaining the many gardens across campus that help grow food security.
The Indigenous Community Learning Garden (ICLG) highly values interacting with land in a sustainable and reciprocal manner. The compost hub project supports the production of culturally significant food crops and addresses sustainability dynamics relating to food sovereignty. In addition, the project serves to address other goals dealing with social, financial, and environmental aspects at the intersection of food and the environment. Through a series of interactive, hands-on workshops prioritized for Native and Indigenous community members, individuals will...
This grant will fund a student intern and materials for Food Day 2012. The intern will work with campus eateries and student groups on continuing Food Day ideals year-round in collaboration with the Nutrition & Physical Activity Workgroup and Sustainable Food Service Workgroup.
This project builds upon a past 2015 TGIF funded project by the BFI that created a foodscape map. The BFI used the data from this map to create a Sustainable and Just Catering Guide (SJCG). With this project, the BFI hopes to help campus departments and student groups adopt the SJCG, which will help reduce plastic use and food waste, and will emphasize small, diverse businesses. The money will go towards a graduate student fellow, with a small amount going towards outreach material.
Many UC Berkeley students exhibit a serious need for access to fresh food. Cal Dining aspired to create a healthier, more equitable food system on-campus by providing access to fresh produce in the dining hall and the student food pantry, facilitating student leadership and experiential education, and connecting residents, students and the community as a whole to their greater environment.
Grad and Family Living is seeking funds to cultivate a space for growing seasonal produce, which will integrate the Pantry with the UVA Community garden. Their initiative aims to improve the surrounding habitat as well as increase nutritional diversity, local sustainability and community building.
VFB is a non-profit, research-oriented organization with the ambition to establish the first and only vertical farm at UC Berkeley. With sustainability in mind, we aim to increase yield and resource efficiency by investigating symbiotic microbe interactions in a hydroponic environment and developing mechanical automation technology, from ECU-controlled water maintenance to labor-free planting/harvesting. Vertical Farming is the general idea of growing produce in a controlled environment with space, resource efficiency, and produce quality in mind....
