The Newfarm Forums

[newfarm]

Similar to the student farm forums, the idea for linking agricultural institutions offering or thinking about building programs in sustainable or organic agriculture was born when we met Mark Williams, an assistant professor in the horticulture department at the University of Kentucky. A few days after we hook up with Mark during a farm tour at a sustainable ag conference in the Northeast, he and a vanload of his grad students pulled into our farm in southeastern Pennsylvania and the brainstorming continued. The result is these forums, offering folks like Mark--who's just trying to get an organic program off the ground in Kentucky--a chance to network with other academic alternative agriculturists (say that three times fast) and pick the brain of experience. So let the fun begin!

[E. Ann Clark]

Happy (actually, very happy) to hear of Mark's efforts to build an organic program at Kentucky. We were successful, after a lengthy process supported by a committed Dean, a skilled and diplomatic department chair designated as the shepherd for the process, and a cadre of focused academics, in getting approval for a Major in Organic Agriculture within our B.Sc.(Agr) degree program. First enrollment will be for this coming fall (2005), and we've had expressions of interest from about a dozen students to date, including off-shore as well as home-grown students.

You can view our efforts - both in teaching and in research - at a newly crafted website (www.organicag.uoguelph.ca).

It may be of interest that the Intro to Organic Ag course we've now taught 4 years in succession, with an annual enrolment of 25, originated through a pair of diploma students (2-year practical degree) who circulated a petition demanding a course in organic agriculture about 6 years ago. Faculty had been unsuccessful in the past in seeking such a course, but the student petition, signed by 350 undergraduate and diploma students, was ultimately successful.

Lots more to say, of course, but I'd love to hear from others working in the same direction, particularly about 'how' one teaches organics. Ann

[newfarm]

It's great to hear from you Dr. Clark! You and Mark are just the types of people we were hoping this forum would bring together. Isn't that interesting it was a student initiative that finally greased the organic wheel at the University of Guelph? The students and faculty at Michigan State University told a similar story when we visited there last summer. The basic premise was a student saying "this is what I am looking for from my publically funded university and I don't see it available." Thanks to student initiave like that and faculty like yourself, John Biernbaum and so many others willing to step in and--with passion and conviction--fill the void, those needs are starting to be met.

Another interesting tidbit we've heard from educators is that sustainable ag and genetic engineering are now the two hottest tickets when it comes to ag students' most common fields of interest. And we all know where the funding has traditionally been...

[Shepherd Ogden]

I have taught as an adjunct at two different colleges (Green Mountain College in Vermont, and Shepherd College (now University) in West Virginia) and BOTH of them began as student inspired programs.

After all, the students are the "customers" in the minds of administration and if they start voting with their feet, admin pays attention. (My own daughter transferred from St Lawrence to Uinversity of Vermont partly because of the lack of Sus Ag courses at SLU.)

As to the first point, I found that what the students want is practical, hands on stuff (why the student farms are so popular I think) and if there is only going to be a course or two, they want that, and will get their theory from other courses.

I heard second and third hand about students who had been in my classes and their strongest positive comments (not always visible in the formal evaluations) were that they actually got a chance to DO some of the work, and get an understanding of the day to day realities of it.

[Connie Falk]

We are teaching (4th year) organic agriculture in the context of a functioning CSA on campus, in southern New Mexico (NM State University). We are awaiting the outcome of our recent organic inspection.

Getting our program started was easy; we got a USDA grant. Keeping it going has been the challenge, actually a series of seemingly never ending challenges...all having to do with convincing the administration the project has merit. We got lucky in one phase of the battle in that we were happily adopted by the Honors College, which brought in a bunch of energetic and idealistic students into the program, which we call OASIS: Organic Agriculture Students Inspiring Sustainability.

Our class is co-taught in Ag Econ and Agron/Hort, and we are starting on a series of joint research projects that ultimately I hope will inspire some innovation in food production systems. In the meantime we are fighting for more space and salary support for the farm manager.

[Mike G]

Several folks are looking into starting a sustainable ag program through our local technical college. Our intent is to make it a hands on program. Local officials are thrilled with the idea and we have been offered a rather generous amount of land (pending a few legal matters) for it's home.

What I'd like to learn more about is how you incorperated classroom learning with field experience. How well programs worked (and what didn't), how profitable is the farm operation itself and what markets worked best, how is the school funded and probably a whole host of other questions that we'll ask later

Thanks

[newfarm]

Mike,

Be sure to check out the top-notch sustainable ag program at Central Carolina Community College http://www.cccc.edu/Programs/Sustainable_Agriculture.html. We were somewhat reluctant to call this forum "Sustainable U," in deference to the great programs going on at community colleges and technical schools across North America. In fact, we invite anyone to email us who knows of such a program, because we're planning a story on the subject.

Dan Sullivan
NF

[E. Ann Clark]

Can you pls recheck URL for Central Carolina Community College program? Ann

[Damian Parr]

It is very exciting that such a space and place for this conversation has begun. I believe we are in an especially appropriate time to gather our voices and creative energies to transform and invent completely new possibilities for agriculture and its education in colleges and universities nation wide. Thank you all for putting forth the colorful work.

The story I am about to tell is not true in any absolute sense of the word. It is a view into a number of events that I have lived to tell you about. The opinions and recollections are my own and my own only, not to be interpreted as fact or representative of any other persons or parties views involved in the story. Remember, it is only a story, and perhaps a bit long for this venue? Enjoy

----------

I (Damian Parr), am a graduate student at UC Davis working with other graduate and undergraduate students (Navina Khanna, Kristin Reynolds, many others), student farm staff (Mark Van Horn), faculty (Cary Trexler, Steve Wienbaum, many others), and administrators (Dean of College of Ag.&Env.Sci.), to establish an undergraduate major in Sustainable Agriculture. And yes, you did read that… Sustainable Agriculture major at University of California at Davis.. And Ignacio Chapela did get tenure this week at UC Berkeley! And… there is still much work to be done.

As the new curriculum is in development, the College of Ag.&Env.Sci. is establishing an Agricultural Sustainability Institute and hiring an Agroecologist faculty, both of which will play major roles in supporting and teaching the new major.
The development of this major has been in its second faculty committee for over a year. Together, the students, staff, and faculty, with funding from Kelloggs CF3 program and the College of Ag.&Env.Sci., conducted a broad stakeholder survey of academics, practitioners, alumni, and students to gather their suggestions for what content knowledge, skills, and experiences students should develop through this major. The aim of this research was to bring stakeholder voice, both internal to the university community and external to the university, to the table in designing the new major. We trusted this would provide students the best possible education, while simultaneously fulfilling our Land-Grant mandate to responsibly serve our public.

This stakeholder research significantly informed the design of our proposed curriculum and pedagogy. Our curriculum report is being drafted right now. The college would like to see the new major come into reality ASAP.

Given this is a long and multifaceted project working its way through an institution of immense size and tradition, we do what is humanly possible given the socio-cultural and political economic structural contexts. Needless to say, our collective creativity and perseverance demands nothing less from us than complete unreasonableness. And yes, compassion remains key to all conflicts of interest/paradigm/perception/worldview. O.k., I’m going to say something even more… possibly arrogant. There is a massive need for education within us all and it requires unanimous participation so that we may succeed in getting in each others’ worlds long enough to be present and deeply communicate. We can all use some supportive facilitation and structures to listen intently. In other words, cooperate, collaborate, resolve problems, and balance powers and privileges democratically and non-violently. Before I go any further with the story, please know that I am certainly not a saint, I am forever a beginner at this communication stuff. I can be very opinionated, at times obnoxious, and even.. I hate to admit it, disrespectful. And it hurts.

O.k., so that’s about what I wanted to share as far as stories. It’s a wonderful and strange world full of dilemmas, paradox, and contradictions…. And the hard won rewards of making a difference.
GO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE!!

I have one last request.

The working team of folks developing this curriculum and other projects has gathered what I consider to be many useful materials and references specifically for sustainable agriculture education at the post secondary level. I suspect many of you also have treasure troves of written ideas, models, and concepts that would benefit many of us in our unique contexts.
Could we set up some web accessible site where we could post electronic documents that could serve interested parties in their creative work towards establishing sustainable ag. education on their campuses?

Again, thanks for your stories. Damian Parr

Doctoral Student
Agriculture Education
School of Education
UC Davis
(530)747-0577
dmparr@ucdavis.edu

[newfarm]

[E. Ann Clark]

As a Davis grad myself, I'm thrilled to hear of Damien's long efforts to develop a curriculum in sustainable agriculture at my old alma mater. That - together with the incredible, fantasmagorical, electrifying news of Chapela's tenure - are the best I could possibly imagine from the UC system. Heartiest congratulations on both counts!

I'm wondering if you, or perhaps others on this list, have given thought to 'how' to teach, as well as 'what' to teach, in the context of organics (or agroeco or sustainable or whatever name it is given)? Is it arguable that teaching organics demands a fundamentally different form of pedogogy - perhaps because the people gravitating toward organics are not necessarily from farms and don't necessarily have depth in the physical reality of farming? Or would teaching agriculture in general benefit from fundamental overhaul? And if so, what kind of pedogogical innovation is needed? Who has done it? How did it work?

I was recently at UBC - that's Univ of British Columbia - in Vancouver and had the pleasure of addressing a couple of classes within their PBL-based program. Seems that the ag faculty has taken on learner-centered learning with a real vengence, to the point where new faculty are schooled in PBL as part of their indoctrination. They sent 2 senior faculty/administrators for training, and they came back and taught the rest. I was most impressed with the alert and engaged students in both of the classes I addressed.

OK - so what about learner-centered 'teaching', of which PBL is one variant? Anybody have experience to share?

And what about practical, hands-on learning? Should this be overtly introduced into the curriculum - whether it be internships in a food processing facility or on a farm or at a social policy institute? Or a co-op program that extends the duration of the degree but explicitly integrates employment within the industry (in whatever sense) as part of the degree?

Should the 4-year curricula - or whatever it is to be - be steered to an outcome, such as a business plan?

And what about those who cannot afford to commit 4 years in series to education? What about 'multiple entry point learners', such as mid-life people who bring a wealth of maturity and experience in something - whether it be stock brokers or bus drivers or carpentry or childrearing - and want to take up farming? How can we - or should we in academia? - offer education to them? Ann

[Robin Kohanowich]

I am very excited to see this forum for sharing thoughts and experiences with sustainable organic education.
As we enter our third year of offering an associate degree in Sustainable Agriculture we continue to modify, fine-tune, and revise the way that we teach. At Central Carolina Community College the sustainable agriculture degree grew out of a thriving continuing education program in sustainable farming. And the seeds for all of it were planted by a local community of farmers and others dedicated to sustainability and committed to sharing their knowledge, experience and vision.
I'd like to offer some thoughts on some of the questions posed by Dr. Clark about teaching methods - how should we teach organic agriculture?- based on our experiences here at CCCC.
Practical and hands-on - wins "hands-down" every time - all of our student feedback has affirmed that the more hands-on the course can be the better they feel about what they have learned.
We have an on-campus farm (more about that later) where we can hold class and where students can "earn and learn" outside of class time.
Students must complete a business plan in order to earn their degree, this semesters plans included two pastured poultry operations, one grass-fed beef operation and a CSA based in an urban development. 3 of the 4 have already started their businesses!
Our cooperative work experience requirement allows the student to work at a farm or related operation of their choice for at least 320 hours. Because of the diversity of farms in our area, students often work on farms as their part-time jobs while attending the program.
Dr. Clark asked "What about 'multiple entry point learners', such as mid-life people who bring a wealth of maturity and experience in something - whether it be stock brokers or bus drivers or carpentry or childrearing - and want to take up farming? How can we - or should we in academia? - offer education to them?" - many of our students fall into this category - and they are some of our most successful. They take the courses that they need ( many come in with good business experience) and get rolling! We also continue to offer our non-degree courses in continuing education, often ideal for the career folks because they are offered in an evening format that is shorter and more flexible than the degree classes. We also partner with our local Cooperative extension office and Carolina Farm Stewardship Association for workshops and conferences - offering a variety of learning opportunities.
I look forward to learning and sharing as this forum continues.

[E. Ann Clark]

Robin: happy to hear of the strategies that have worked for you. One of the conflicts we're faced with in attempting to mesh practical with academic learning is that most of our students work for $ in the summer months. So, whatever we offer, of a practical nature, needs to be either optional or accessible at a time other than summer.

I agree wholeheartedly with your obsvn about 'practical wins, hands down'. The type of 'new' student that seems to be attracted to organics is often without farm background, which identifies educational needs quite different from what sufficed when most of our students were from farms. I really like the 'student run farm' concept, such as Dilman Hill at Cornell or the original 'Experimental Farm' at Davis (which is now a full fledged educational facility and market garden under the supervision of Mark Van Horn. When I was there in the early 70s, it was a place of long hair, counter culture, and pitchforks learning to turn compost. My my, how times have changed). Student run farms still need some supervision, however, and that means money or resources from somewhere.

I'm also thoroughly impressed with the organic market garden set-up at Evergreen State in Washington. I had the privilege of visiting one of their weekly walkabouts when on holiday a couple of years ago, with the farmer-students in tow, listening to a fascinating and illuminating dialogue between their resident commercial market gardener and the academic in charge of the program (Martha Rosemeyer). They do this weekly, providing a time continuum of action (last week) and response (this week) in the crops. This longitudinal focus mimics the 'living with consequences' dimension which is often lacking when we parachute into a farm, look around for half a day, then blast out to the next one,never to be seen again. Ann

[Damian Parr]

Ann, (All)

First of all, although I have been very, if not at times the most vocal about celebrating the possibility of a sustainable agriculture undergraduate major, I need to help make visible the multiple generations of people who have put their life energy into forward motion toward a more sustainable agriculture education here at UC Davis. As you know from your counter culture days, it has been and remains a very long row to hoe. There are too many names to mention here, right now... but praises to them/you all.

I also need to reiterate the critically important collaborative and participatory nature of the sustainable agriculture curriculum design process that is happening here at UC Davis. First, the committee has tenured faculty, junior faculty, staff, and students as its contributing membership. Second, there was committed efforts to inform the curriculum via stakeholder suggestions via a survey study (academics, practitioners, alumni, and students from across California and the U.S.). These efforts were supported by various administration staff, including the Dean of our College of Ag.&Env.Sci., who not only helped fund the stakeholder survey, also held multiple stakeholder town hall meetings to foster both internal (university), and external stakeholder engagement.
I say this not only to appropriately credit peoples/offices work, but to clarify the process (from my understanding), in case our journey might help others seeking similar goals. Again, I personally believe that a fully participatory process is essential. I would argue that this entire process is a social learning exercise and that sustainable agriculture (its becoming our ed. institutional policy and practice), requires participatory civic engagement. I even go as far as to propose democracy!

As for your question: “Is it arguable that teaching organics demands a fundamentally different form of pedagogy”
I have much to say about this and would very much like to focus some prolonged dialogue on this topic. I have been focusing my last two years on the role of experiential learning (EL), in sustainable agriculture education (SAE) (from hear out I generally consider sustainable and organic, and Agroecology to be the same. I hold them all to the highest and most integrated standards), and I feel confident that I am nearing a clear articulation of the distinctions EL offers to SAE. I am actively writing on it and am in conversation with the New Farm staff to see if we can’t get a commonly accessible reference website where we can post literature, references, etc..etc..
I would like to mention in the most general and brief sense where my interests in EL and SAE have taken me and come back to it later.

The land grant universities and colleges of ag. (LGCA) were an experiment in practical education for people of ordinary means. Higher education was never before available to anyone but elites in the U.S., nor was it directed toward agriculture. Now there was much compromise with the LGCA’s and they are not by any means pure as snow with their populist intentions. But, they offer a significant starting place for higher ed focused on practical and I would argue, popular education (focused on the every day lived experiences of people, explicitly critiquing expert professional culture and elite knowledge). What I’m getting here to is a history of progressive educational ideas that were emerging around the same time with what became known as the Progressive education movement. John Dewey was the most well know proponent of this philosophy and is widely known for his work on experiential learning. I fast forward to todays work in cognitive sciences, phycology, and sociology applied to science education and ed. in general. The learning theory widely defined as constructivism has a tremendous potential to lend to us folks working to bridge the practical, hands-on pedagogy with the issues of congative development.. and its importance for both individuals and social groups. I would love to go more into it, and offer up articles and other conversation, but need to get going right now. I look forward to a concerted focus on exploring learning theory and how we as educators in SA appreciate and choose EL as an especially powerful pedagogical approach.
O.k., I can't help but list a few papers...... : )

Bawden, R. (1996). A Learning Approach to Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development: Reflections from Hawkesbury."Training for Agricultural and Rural Development, 1995-96" (FAO, 1996) http://www.fao.org/sd/EXdirect/EXan0010.htm taken 6/3/05

Bawden, R., Busch, L., & Gagni, A.O. (1991). The agricultural university for the twenty first century. Impact of Science on Society, 41(4), 353-366.

Bawden, R. (1990). Of agricultural systems and systems agriculture: Systems methodologies in agricultural education. 305-323. In Systems Theory Applied to Agriculture and The Food Chain, (Ed.) Jones, J.G.W., Davis, CA: P.R. Street.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: The MacMillan Company. (really short book)

Francis, C., Leiblein, G., Helenius, J., Salomonsson, L., Olsen, H., & Porter, J. (2001).
Challenges in designing ecological agriculture education: A Nordic perspective on change. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, 16(2), 89-95.

Francis, C., Lieblein, G., Gliessman, S., Breland, T.A., Creamer, N., Harwood, L., Salomonsson, L., Helenius, J., Rickerl, D., Salvador, R., Wiedenhoeft, M., Simmons, S., Allen, P., Altieri, M., Flora, C., & Poincelot, R. (2003). Agroecology: The ecology of food systems. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 22(3), 99-119.

[Gena Fleming]

Just wanted to say about how pleased I am to discover this forum and see that sustainable agriculture is finally being offered in universities. I appreciate this forum.

It is not surprising that this appears largely to be student motivated. Thank goodness that universities do finally change from grassroots movements and in response to consumer demand. It would be nice if they took more of a lead! I believe many intelligent individuals have simply turned away from college because the curriculum does not mesh with their world view and values.

I know the movement will continue to grow. At the undergraduate level, I hope there is soon an option for teacher certification, so that the ag/hort programs in high schools might offer sustainable program options.

I also hope your sustainable programs continue to the graduate PhD level. International relief organizations are frequently looking for this level of degree and we should be offering sustainable options, not trans-national corporate options to the developing world. Also, creating graduate programs will help regenerate university faculty to perpetuate and expand these programs.

There is organic agriculture, and then there are integrated systems such as permaculture, and integrated biosystems where agriculture can be integrated into waste management, water purification, sustainable energy production, etc. These methods also require alternative economic and social structures. There is no limit to how large your sustainable educational programs could grow.

I am neither student nor faculty. As a public school teacher, I started an organic garderning project for high school students (desert gardening, sunken basins, Native American crops) and I currently practice oriental medicine.

Sustainable/organic agriculture will improve our health more than any medicine. I just wanted to cast my vote for your continued efforts and expansion of your programs.