This week in Sust Ag, a lot of things have been happening. In the past two days, we have had two guest speakers from a variety of different sustainability backgrounds. Alex Fox, who is the Sustainability at Straus Farms, discussed thoroughly about her experiences in the food world, especially about how Strauss farms works to mitigate climate change. At their farm, for example, they use a "Methane Digester", which is a tarp that suppresses methane from being put into the atmosphere and manages to turn that into electricity. Since Dairy farms are big emitters of methane, it make sense to use these type of devices to stop climate change. Unfortunately, methane digesters are expensive and difficult to maintain, which is why they are not being used as widespread across California.
Sarah, a former Redwood student as well as Alex, works as an herbalist to use products from the natural world for medicinal purposes. She talked about using Aloe Vera for skin irritation, chewing up Yarrow to make a paste to stop bleeding, and how eating bitter things like Dandelion leaves is "sweet to the stomach", as it improves gut health. These have been the main things we have experienced in class during this week.
However, outside of class, students have been working on their Farm reports by going to visit local Marin County farms or visiting local farmer's markets and interviewing them. For interviews, students have been asking farmers what they plant, when they plant, how they plant, and how much compost do you use among other questions. For students who visited farms, we were able to observe first hand how farms go about planting. Last weekend, my group visited the Green Gulch Farm in Muir Beach where we saw a variety of different plants in smaller beds but noticed that most of their bigger fields had only bell beans planted in them. This was an exciting and interesting experience for both me and my group mates.
Sarah, a former Redwood student as well as Alex, works as an herbalist to use products from the natural world for medicinal purposes. She talked about using Aloe Vera for skin irritation, chewing up Yarrow to make a paste to stop bleeding, and how eating bitter things like Dandelion leaves is "sweet to the stomach", as it improves gut health. These have been the main things we have experienced in class during this week.
However, outside of class, students have been working on their Farm reports by going to visit local Marin County farms or visiting local farmer's markets and interviewing them. For interviews, students have been asking farmers what they plant, when they plant, how they plant, and how much compost do you use among other questions. For students who visited farms, we were able to observe first hand how farms go about planting. Last weekend, my group visited the Green Gulch Farm in Muir Beach where we saw a variety of different plants in smaller beds but noticed that most of their bigger fields had only bell beans planted in them. This was an exciting and interesting experience for both me and my group mates.
JD Mancini
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