Sustainable Agriculture
At the heart of our on-farm and classroom learning in the Kalapuya Sustainable Agriculture Cohort is a desire to honestly explore the benefits and drawbacks of our conventional food system. We look at our programming through a lens of justice and equity.
Our highest priority is to empower our learners to make responsible choices around food, both for their long-term health but also for the health of those who grow, harvest, and prepare our food.
We aim to present an alternative paradigm and create a model solution to large-scale conventional agriculture in which farmworkers and the land are treated with dignity and respect.
Students learn about the economic, social, environmental, and health benefits of local farming, highlighting the critical role of the farmworker and their need for fair pay and equitable working conditions.
Additionally, the sustainable agriculture cohort engages in science topics that further their understanding and connection to the farm.
Students focus on the genetics of plant breeding and reproduction, the micro-ecosystem within a compost pile, the seasonal and climatic factors related to plant growth, sexual and asexual reproductive strategies of plants, soil as a natural resource, and much more.
Students conduct hands-on inquiry-based projects to further explore these topics. Some examples include plant breeding, cloning and grafting, microbial studies in compost tea, hydroponics, soil studies, biological pest control, and plant propagation.
The sustainable agriculture cohort spends a week of the term studying Dolores Huerta and the impact she made for farmworkers in California as well as current farmworker issues in the U.S. and abroad. Students also spend a week exploring farmland loss due to development, food waste, factory farming, pollinator loss, and many other issues within our industrial food systems. They also identify sustainable solutions, many of which have been put into practice on the Bethel Farm.
The class participates in multiple field trips to working farms in Lane County that provide living wages to employees, and students interview farm owners and workers about their experiences. Students have the opportunity to tour the Small Farmers’ Project to learn about why and how they started this farm collective. Other field trips include Eugene Wholesale Nursery, Doak Creek Nursery, and the Oregon State University greenhouse program and Bee Lab.
During a supplemental learning week, students can apply to participate in a comprehensive study of sustainable agriculture through a weeklong field trip to several California farms working to create a new way of farming that benefits its workers, their consumers, and the land.
Beekeeping
The Farm as a Living Laboratory
Composting System
