Katie Monsen

This zine is based on Monsen's experience teaching Agroecology & Sustainable Agriculture (ENVS 130A/L) in Summer 2025. A core part of UCSC Agroecology major, this course introduces students to the field of agroecology, develops frameworks for studying agroecosystems, and tracks the influence of environmental factors on agricultural systems alongside interactions among different components of these systems. It is also a field-based class, meaning students spend 3 weeks at UCSC and 1 week each in Fresno, in Berkeley, and in Davis gaining a multidimensional understanding of agroecology study through hands-on learning.

This page offers condensed version of the zine's narrative. You can view and download the full version here. ➡️

Monsen designed the difficult conversations project to be a part of the class, guided by a "Conversations Journal" in which students responded to articles posted on Canvas.

For Round 1, Monsen explains, "I aimed for a not-too-controversial piece."  Students journaled about a peer-reviewed article describing the application of silicon spray to improve the yield of soybeans. In class, Monsen first set the terms for conversation, for e.g.,

• be curious

• give space to others without interruption

• leave room for silence and thinking.

The students then dove into conversation, which Monsen characterizes as: 

"WOW! High participation! Such thoughtfulness!" No consensus, but hearing from each other sharing, building off each other. So much deeper than I expected.             Rinse + Repeat, right? Well...."  

Not so fast.

In the email, the student explained their concern. In essence:

They had been learning about the need for respect, for collaboration, for care of, and relationship with, farmers as part of (critical to!) good and just agroecology.

Going onto farms and doing extractive data collection without reciprocity felt wrong.

Could we rethink this?

Monsen replied: "Thank you for sharing. And let's talk next week."

Meanwhile, Monsen posted a second article to Canvas for the Conversation journals.

By Sonja Brodt et al. (2024), this article argues that "new" crops are often anything but new to Indigenous peoples of that place. In the case of elderberry, nearly 200 tribes that live in California have been in relationship with elderberry and the land on which it grows. "For non-Indigenous farmers and researchers working with elderberry, it is important to be aware of our state’s history of land dispossession and non-Native land management practices, which have often diminished California Native peoples’ access to and sovereignty over traditional foods, medicines and cultural materials."

Again, says Monsen, the conversation was so rich. This time, students discussed themes including how Indigenous voices are often treated as a monolith and crops are treated as if "global" in nature, rather than rooted in particular places with particular networks of human and more-than-human relatives.

Students talked about academic researchers needing to pay attention to not just who is included by how research is done.

Nutritional supplements are a wildly profitable industry, so who stands to benefit from elderberry R&D? 

Finally, students moved into talking about their soil sampling experience. 

They shared with Professor Monsen that "they were hurt that I had put them into the very position from which we're trying to break free, this extractivist approach to agroecology."

Monsen continues, "I was able to listen to them, acknowledging their feelings, sharing their concern, and open the door to rethinking this."