cookiesinheaven

Localizing Santa Barbara County agrifood systems: research, action and policy.

Friday, 20 May 2011, 12:00p-6:30p
Saturday, 21 May 2011, 8:00a-7:30p

McCune Conference Center (HSSB 6020), UCSB

 

Workshop Schedule

The Santa Barbara County Agrifood Systems Research Group is hosting a workshop at UCSB on the Santa Barbara agrifood system. The agrifood system includes everything from production inputs, on-farm production, distribution, processing, preparation, and consumption, to the effects of such factors on the community, human nutrition, the economy and the environment.

The workshop will bring together participants in the SBC agrifood system (farmers, policy makers, distributors, researchers, and food advocates) to begin moving towards a future for Santa Barbara County and our region that is locally oriented, environmentally sound, socially responsible and economically viable. Our vision is to support the development of a system that encourages and enhances opportunities for small-to-medium sized farmers, minimizes the use of toxic substances, provides living wages and healthy working conditions to farm workers, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, conserves water, and makes nutritious, healthy local food available to all residents.

The goals of the workshop are to share our research, invite open discussion and dialogue among participants, identify key barriers and agree on a key set of strategies for education, research, action and policy. 

For Questions or Suggestions, please email: sbc.agrifoodworkshop@gmail.com

http://es.ucsb.edu/esconf/

Labels: Community, UCSB

Labels: Festivals, Food, UCSB

Gills processes as many as a million pounds of onions a day at its Oxnard facility, which employs about 400 people and is the largest onion processor in the country. Its daily work generates about 300,000 pounds of onion waste, but a new energy recovery system at Gills turns what was once thrown away into clean heat and electricity and valuable cattle feed. The system generates 600 kilowatts of electricity.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s been one my goals for my whole life to take care of this waste,” Gill told the Business Times.

Gill’s investment will pay for itself in about six years. The plant has been online for a few weeks, and once he proves it works, he’ll get a $2.7 million check from the Southern California Gas Co., which is administering money from a state program designed to encourage big users to generate their own energy.

Before the new fuel-cell plant, Gills put its waste out onto fields, where it generated carbon dioxide and methane as it decomposed. The process also cost a lot of money in diesel fuel to transport the waste, tipping fees to dump it and labor to spread it. Turning the waste into energy instead will save the company $700,000 in electricity costs, $400,000 in land-application costs and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30,000 tons annually.

...Gills Onions is in the midst of a host of other green-minded activities. It recently signed on with the California Climate Action Registry and is gathering information for a baseline measure of its greenhouse gas emissions.

Once that baseline is complete, the public will be able to view it along with improvements the company makes. Oxnard-based Agromin is a member of the group, as are the cities of Thousand Oaks, Ventura and Santa Barbara. Gills is also working with the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Four graduate students there are working with the firm on drawing up a plan to make Gills Onions a zero-waste company. - Pacific Coast Business Times

Labels: Energy, Onions, Oxnard, UCSB

Hidden Kitchens, heard on NPR's Morning Edition, explores secret, unexpected, below-the-radar cooking across America. The Kitchen Sisters show how communities come together through food: midnight cabyard kitchens, prison rodeo kitchens, a secret civil rights kitchen, food traditions and rituals from across the country. The series inspired two books, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More from NPR's Kitchen Sisters and Hidden Kitchens Texas. - UCSB Food Matters Series

Labels: Books, Food, Kitchen, NPR, stories, UCSB

is Santa Barbara's special guest tomorrow. KCSB will be broadcasting his talks at UCSB live...and podcasts will be available at their site as well.

Namaste.

Labels: buddha, Dalai Lama, KCSB, radio, Santa Barbara, UCSB