Climate change is upon us.  The world’s water supply is shrinking.  And increasingly, local, organic food is becoming more than just a fad or a luxury for wealthy foodies.  On this edition, we go to California, America’s leading producer of fruits, vegetables, and dairy, to see some examples of how the nation’s agricultural industry is slowly but surely, moving away from factory farms. 

 Featuring:

Joe Schirmer, Dirty Girl Produce owner and dry farmer; Juliet Christian Smith, Pacific Institute Senior Research Associate; William Friedland, University of California at Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus of Community Studies; Jim Leap, UC Santa Cruz Agro-Ecology Center Farm Operations Manager; John Fiscalini,  Fiscalini Farms President and CEO; Brian Fiscalini,  Fiscalini Farms General Manager; Mariano Gonzalez, Fiscalini Cheese Company Head Cheese Maker; Richard Machado and Christopher Montes, Cheese makers; Gary Peterson, Agriculture and Land-based Training Association (ALBA) Deputy Director; Karina Canto, ALBA agriculturist and farm incubator program participant; Efren Avalos, Avalos Organic farm owner and former ALBA participant.

For More Information:  

Pacific Institute

http://pacinst.org/

Oakland, CA

Center for Agro-ecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CAFS), UC Santa Cruz. 

http://casfs.ucsc.edu/

California Agricultural Water Stewardship Initiative

http://agwaterstewards.org/txp/index.php  
Occidental, CA

Dirty Girl Produce 

http://dirtygirlproduce.com

Watsonville, CA

 Fiscalini Farms
http://www.fiscalinifarms.com/
http://www.fiscalinicheese.com/

Agriculture and Land-based Training Association (ALBA)

http://www.albafarmers.org/

Salinas, CA

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