Celebrate community and the abundance of the fall harvest with UCSC’s annual Fall Harvest Festival, happening all week long from October 5 through 10. A collaboration between the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), Life Lab, and students of UCSC's Food Systems Working Group (FSWG), this year’s festival will feature a series of free, interactive online events for all ages.
Family-friendly events will include a tide pool exploration with UCSC Ecology Instructor Kristen Heady, aka “Dr. Tidepool,” a backyard chicken Q&A session with Life Lab Garden Educator Amy Carlson and Westside Farm and Feed co-owner Gail Harlamoff, tips on outdoor activities for kids from garden educators Tod Haddow and Whitney Cohen, and a workshop on making cider donuts followed by a panel discussion with apple experts Orin Martin of the Chadwick Garden, Sky DeMuro, the orchard manager for the CASFS Farm & Garden, and Tim Bates of the Philo Apple Farm.
The festival will also include events geared toward UCSC students, including a workshop on enhancing skills for success amidst challenges, an information session on FSWG, and a cooking and poetry workshop from students of UCSC’s Rachel Carson College Garden.
Students, researchers, and community members are invited to join a lecture on the evolution of agroecology as a practice, a research discipline, and a social movement on October 7 from 1:30-2:45 pm. This event will feature a panel discussion from six diverse agroecology experts from across the country and will be the first event in a new quarterly lecture series from CASFS.
Other festival events include a discussion of seed saving as an act of decolonization and a tool for sustaining communities with UCSC Assistant Farm Garden Manager Kellee Matsushita-Tseng and students from UCSC’s Demeter Seed Library, and a celebration of queer farmers and discussion of the connections between queers and nature with Edgar Xochitl of Hummingbird Farm in San Francisco and Clare Riesman from UCSC's Chadwick Garden.
The week will end with Life Lab’s annual Fall Benefit Dinner on October 10 from 10am to 12:30pm. Life Lab staff will share the inspiring work of their dedicated staff and host a virtual tour of their evolving vision.
The Harvest Festival is cosponsored by CASFS, FSWG, Life Lab, and UCSC’s Measure 43. For a complete schedule of events and registration instructions, visit bit.ly/ucscharvestfest.