I’m being selfish when I say that UC Berkeley needs to go back to its roots. As a member of the Student Organic Gardening Association, a facilitator of our organic gardening DeCal and a student deeply passionate about food systems and sustainable agriculture, I can clearly see how little stock our administration puts in undergraduate agricultural endeavors. Think back to Occupy the Farm, where people protested against the development of the campus’s last large agricultural plot of land, its not hard to see how far UC Berkeley has come from our humble roots as a small land-grant university.
Land was given to what is now UC Berkeley because the Morrill Act, which necessitated that these colleges act for the “benefit of agriculture and the mechanical arts.” The California Organic Act of 1867-68 not only outlined the goals of this new university but specified that, “as soon as practicable a system of moderate manual labor shall be established in connection with the Agricultural College … having for its object practical education in agriculture, landscape gardening, the health of the students.”
Doesn’t that sound nice? An opportunity to learn about agriculture, empower ourselves as Millennials to learn about our food system and see first hand the journey from farm to fork. But alas, we’ve strayed far from this original vision. The last true university-owned student space for agriculture and gardening at UC Berkeley is SOGA, a student-created and student-run small plot of land located on Walnut and Virginia Streets. During the fall, SOGA becomes a living classroom for a wonderful class about urban agriculture, but this class constricts students’ abilities to have the final say in garden activities, and we deserve more than an ever-dwindling plot of land on the far side of campus.
Last semester, I had dreams to proposition the campus to give us a green space that could be ours 365 days a year. I envisioned an educational organic garden with native bee hedgerows on the hill that currently holds Campbell Hall construction crews. We’d be impossible to ignore and would offer cooking classes, gardening demonstrations and would allow anyone affiliated with the campus to share in our harvests after they’d worked the land for a few hours.
I saw this space in addition to SOGA’s current space, one that could align with the goals of Occupy the Farm and that would reaffirm our campus’ history as an agricultural giant. It could become a place of rest amid busy schedules and hectic lives. One of my favorite parts about facilitating SOGA this year is the time it allows me to relax, and revel in the sensations of sun on my shoulders and dirt between my fingers. I find peace and meditative calm in the repetitive nature of weeding, watering, sowing and pruning.
Unfortunately, I became discouraged after a failed grant attempt and a sense of helplessness in the face of so much bureaucratic red tape needed to make this dream a reality. I want a space to grow with my fellow students all year without having to enroll in a class that barely fits into my schedule in order to spend a few hours in the garden.
I came to UC Berkeley with dreams of sustainability that have morphed into goals and dreams about the future of local, environmentally-conscious agriculture. I didn’t even bother applying to UC Davis, mostly because it was too close to home and too far from urban centers, but as I look back I wonder if I did belong on the Farm. They’re also a large land-grant university, but with amazing environmental programs, their own student farm, and support of the campus administration. I’ve done my best here to find niches to fulfill my intellectual and environmental passions by joining a food collective, working on waste reduction, developing my own major in the College of Natural Resources and more. I hope someone in the future tries to make undergraduate agriculture more of a reality on campus. I don’t regret coming to Berkeley, which is in my mind the best public university in the world — I just hope we leave some room for our past in all our future plans.
Contact Carli Baker at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter: @carliannebaker.