Sowing the Seeds of Community: Berkeley Student Farms and the Fruits of Gardening

One of the herb beds at the Brown’s Cafe Herbal Garden

While cities can often appear to be a losing battle ground between Mother Nature and concrete, efforts in recent years have yielded a surprising increase in the amount of green speckling the maps of urban areas. Collaborative cultivation of public land through the creation of community gardens is steadily growing in popularity. According to The Trust for Public Land, the number of garden plots located in city parks has risen 44% since 2012. In the 100 largest U.S cities alone, more than 29,000 garden plots existed in 2018. The root of this growth is undoubtedly the benefits associated with community gardening. These advantages are available to UC Berkeley students to get involved in through the recently formed student group, Berkeley Student Farms (BSF).

Berkeley Student Farms is a coalition of seven unique, student-run garden plots. Among the seven are Brown’s Cafe Herbal Garden, Clark Kerr Campus Garden, Fannie Lou Hamer Garden, Guerilla Gardens, La Loma Rooftop, MCC Healing and Learning Garden, Student Organic Gardening Association (SOGA) and Gill Tract Farm. Each garden carries its own unique history and supports a wide variety of plant life from fruits and veggies to medicinal herbs and pollinator flowers. The Clark Kerr Campus Garden and Brown’s Cafe Herbal Garden are maintained by the Housing and Dining Sustainability Advocates. Not only do these gardens offer a variety of seasonal produce and herbs, they also serve as educational spaces for visitors through signs describing the uses of different plants and various agroecological growing methods. The proximity of these gardens to student-centered spaces provides an unique opportunity for students to learn more about their role in our food systems. SOGA, located adjacent to the Oxford Tract, allows gardeners to harvest anything in season from the numerous fruit trees and crop beds as well as participate in regenerative practices like seed saving and composting.

Greens harvested from the Clark Kerr Campus Garden

BSF also has gardens that aim to serve the BIPOC community, including Fannie Lou Hamer Garden, Guerilla Gardens, La Roma Rooftop and the MCC Healing & Learning Garden. To highlight a few, the Fannie Lou Hamer Garden hopes to provide a safe space for Black students to garden, attend services and support one another. This garden also helps serve the Black community outside of UC Berkeley through holding workshops, bringing in guest speakers and providing resources. While Black students have priority for positions within the garden and deciding on the crops grown, students of every background are encouraged to utilize the garden. Guerilla garden’s primary space, Barker Garden, is managed by both the Sustainable Campus Landscaping and Ecological Design DeCal and the Indigenous and Native Student Coalition (INC). These student groups work together to ensure the community acknowledges and honors the land where the garden is situated, which is part of the sacred territory of the Chochenyo Ohlone people. In addition to pushing for UC Berkeley to provide reparations and give back ancestral remains, the curriculum strives to teach underrepresented students to garden and develop an inclusive community. 

One of the primary benefits associated with community gardening is the greater accessibility to fresh produce. Communities have the opportunity to grow fresh, organic food that may not be possible in their own homes due to space or money constraints. According to a study featured in the Journal of Nutrition Behavior and Education, households with a member who utilized a community garden consumed fruits and vegetables 1.4 times more frequently per day than those who were not involved in a community garden. Additionally, it has been found that limited access to fresh produce presents a barrier to maintaining a healthy diet. The lack of grocery stores found in low-income and underserved areas as well as the price of produce can act as a barrier to eating a balanced diet. Community gardens, therefore, can help to remedy this issue and serve as an opportunity to increase access and affordability of healthy foods.

BSF, working with the Basic Needs Center (BNC), is incorporating this positive aspect of community gardening through facilitating donations, which has become an increasingly essential service as COVID-19 exacerbates rates of food insecurity. BSF provides the BNC with organic produce for the food pantry, as well as for nutrition and cooking skills programs. The Basic Needs Center’s Food Pantry offers various food items ranging from fresh produce to freezer items for the UC Berkeley community. Anyone experiencing short-term or long-term food insecurity can take advantage of this resource, and students and faculty are encouraged to take however much is needed while being mindful of other community members. Claire Stockwell, Basic Needs Food Recovery Coordinator, considers BSF to be a significant part of the resources the BNC is able to contribute.

“It's really valuable to have different kinds of produce in the pantry, and collaborating with students to stock local produce is an important part of our model,” Stockwell said. “We plan on continuing to collaborate with BSF to source fresh produce from campus farms and gardens, and having some collaborative work days out in the gardens.”

Gardening has also been found to help with mental and physical health as it is a relatively low-impact, active hobby that involves pulling, bending, stretching, digging, carrying tools and other movements that help circulate blood and strengthen muscles. The sunlight gardeners are exposed to in the summer also has health benefits such as lowering blood pressure and increasing vitamin D levels. Being in nature itself has been shown to improve mood and well-being. A Japanese study found that looking at plants had an impact on EEG recordings and lowered feelings of stress, anger, fear and sadness, as well as lowering blood pressure, pulse rate and muscle tension. Additionally the social interaction available to participants in community gardens has been observed to delay symptoms of dementia. For these reasons, being active in community gardens can contribute to cultivating a healthy lifestyle, which is particularly beneficial in the midst of the unprecedented levels of stress and loneliness brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Berkeley students hoping to reap the benefits of gardening, BSF is offering many safe ways to do so. Although some gardens are not hosting public office hours, others are still open because of the ability to follow social distancing. In order to be able to attend the open hours, visitors must take certain precautions, including completing a daily symptom screener, ensuring that their quarantine badge is green, and wearing a mask at all times while keeping a 6 foot distance between other participants. 

Additionally, BSF is offering many remote ways to get involved this semester. Meetings for planning and coordinating BSF events are held virtually through Zoom, and BSF team members are currently in the process of planning new virtual workshops covering a host of environmental topics. Last semester, BSF held workshops on topics including rematriation and indigenous perspectives on agriculture and how to utilize the food grown at the gardens. Members of the team are also working to create a BSF cookbook for easy and affordable recipes that will be distributed at the Basic Needs Center. The purpose behind this cookbook is to be able to offer an additional resource to low-income families and students to assist in planning and making healthier food choices. There are also many different ways to get involved internally with BSF, including participating on teams that focus on new member support, meeting planning, garden history, seed and harvest inventory and many others. 

There has been an outpouring of positive feedback from the UCB community about the work of BSF. At their first virtual meeting of the 2021 spring semester, the organization had nearly 100 attendees, all eager to find ways to get involved and contribute both locally and from afar. Joining the efforts of BSF is also a meaningful way to foster community empowerment and unification, as BSF member Claire Hambrick emphasizes about her experience.

“I believe that BSF provides a sense of community and purpose in a world that is anything but predictable,” Hambrick said. “I think that it is a great place to come if you are open to thinking about food differently and connecting with and learning about your food and what it takes to make it all happen.”