Many of the fruits and vegetables served in UCLA dining halls
and restaurants have been treated with pesticides and transported
from around the world. The California Student Sustainability
Coalition hopes to change that.
Aiming to urge all UC campuses to incorporate organic,
locally-grown produce into their eating facilities, members are
holding an official launch for UCLA’s involvement in the
coalition’s UC Food Systems Campaign today.
The coalition, a statewide organization of students who advocate
environmentally sound practices, is slated to begin collecting
signed postcards today from students who would like the UC system
to buy such produce.
“Right now, we purchase from outside of California and we
purchase from other countries, which is really unnecessary,”
said Megan Carney, director of the UCLA chapter of the UC Foods
campaign and a fourth-year anthropology student.
Carney explained that buying local foods would boost the state
economy and cut down on emissions from vehicles used to transport
the produce.
She emphasized that buying local produce is an issue of social
responsibility as well ““ the organization aims to encourage
buying foods from farms that protect workers’ rights.
“It isn’t just an environmental movement at
all,” Carney said.
Connie Foster, UCLA’s associate director of dining
services, said her department is open to suggestions but needs to
keep costs in mind.
“I think it’s no secret that organic products are
more expensive, so that needs to be taken into
consideration,” Foster said.
Campus restaurants may consider buying organic foods in the
future, but they are currently part of a developing market that
needs further study, said Roy Champawat, associate director of
ASUCLA Food Services.
“Our mandate is to get good quality and the best price
possible,” Champawat said. “If the board wanted to
change the mandate, that’s something they’d be able to
do.”
Foster said though supporting local farms is an admirable goal,
putting it into practice at UCLA may be difficult.
“It’s hard, … being in a metropolitan area,”
added Foster. “It’s not like we have a lot of fields
nearby.”
But Carney said even buying produce from farmers who live in the
state is a step in the right direction.
“For Los Angeles, local is basically the little fertile
crescent in California itself … basically, central
California,” she said.
Carney added that though change may not happen all at once, the
coalition would like the campus to begin the process.
“It’s our hope to incrementally increase
UCLA’s (organic food) purchases,” she said.
“Maybe in two years, UCLA will be 10 percent
organic.”
Some UC campuses have already started to move toward purchasing
sustainable, locally-grown produce.
Starting this fall, UC Santa Cruz began to buy 10 percent of the
produce used in its dining halls from a consortium of local
farmers, said Tim Galarneau, a UC Foods campaign statewide adviser
and UCSC alumnus.
The consortium consists of seven organic farms that range from
UCSC’s on-campus farm to farms located about 100 miles away,
Galarneau said.
UC Santa Barbara is also taking steps to integrate sustainable
foods into their campus dining halls.
The UCSB dining services department is currently planning to
work with its vendor on comparing the costs of standard produce
with the costs of sustainable local produce.
The goal is “to see if we can incorporate things that are
within reasonable pricing,” said Bonnie Crouse, assistant
director of dining services at UCSB.
Crouse added that her department is also working with the Santa
Barbara farmers’ market to set up a dining hall sustainable
produce salad bar.
“It’s amazing how fast the whole thing has
progressed from “˜What about this?’ to being
incorporated into our program,” Crouse said.