Jardineand Sampson were quickly elevated from “special agents” to permanent positions in the Forest Service, becoming “the two pioneers in national forest-range research” . Jardine was promoted to Inspector of Grazing in charge of the new Office of Grazing Studies in 1910, overseeing range research and directing the monumental task of “range reconnaissance” throughout the national forests over the following decade . He later served as chief of the Office of Experiment Stations and Director of Research for the USDA. Sampson was appointed to head the new Utah Experiment Station on the Manti National Forest, where he worked until 1922, when he accepted a newly created academic post in range science at the University of California-Berkeley. Both authored reports in 1919 that rank among the most influential in the history of US rangelands: Jardine’s “Range Management on the National Forests” was the first comprehensive statement of the policies and principles guiding forest rangeland management. It was still in use at his retirement in 1945—having been “three times reprinted without change”—when he was described as having “brought out the principles on which are founded the standards of good grazing practice over the whole western range country” .
Sampson’s “Plant Succession in Relation to Range Management” established range science on the basis of Clementsian ecological theory. For governmental and scientific purposes, blueberry packaging box respectively, Jardine and Sampson became the principal architects of the dominant paradigm affecting US rangelands in the 20th century. It relied on fencing and predator control not only to remake the physical landscape in favor of livestock production, but also to modifly the social landscape, reducing livestock owners’ dependence on herders to tend and protect their animals. In this realm and many others, the policies of the Forest Service benefited some people at the expense of others, and the agency relied heavily on “science,” howsoever flawed, to buttress its legitimacy . With the creation of the Office of Grazing Studies within the Forest Service, moreover, a critical bureaucratic shift took place, apparently without comment or resistance. The scientific challenge of studying grasses, grazing, and rangelands passed from the Bureau of Plant Industry into the hands of the Forest Service, first under the umbrella of the Branch of Grazing and, after 1926, the Branch of Research. There is no indication that Coville objected to this transfer of research authority, and perhaps he could not have foreseen its longer-term consequences. Foremost among these consequences was the permanent subordination of range research to the Forest Service’s core mandate, timber production, and to its corollary imperative of fire suppression. What this meant, in practice, was that range researchers would be discouraged, if not prohibited outright, from investigating the possible benefits of fire to grasslands, savannas and forests throughout the West for most of the 20th century.
It is impossible to know what might have happened had range research remained in the portfolio of the BPI, but there is reason to believe that fire might well have been viewed in a more favorable light, at least in certain parts of the country such as the Southwest .The effects of the Coyote-Proof Pasture Experiment extend down to the present and across literally hundreds of millions of acres of rangelands in the US and elsewhere. It contributed directly to policies of fencing the land into pastures and eradicating predators of all kinds in the belief that these measures would benefit both livestock production and rangeland conditions. Fencing has since become ubiquitous and almost unquestioned as a basic tool of ranching and rangeland management, subsidized by US government agencies and aggressively promoted in pastoral development projects overseas; Netz , who acknowledges that the US West was where barbed wire fencing found its first widespread use, goes so far as to view it as fundamental to the “ecology of modernity.” Many predators continue to be persecuted by the BBS’s descendent agency, Wildlife Services; even those that are not, persist only at much reduced numbers. Perhaps most importantly, the Wallowa experiment contributed indirectly to institutionalizing range research in an agency whose primary mission lay elsewhere, inhibiting scientific recognition of the ecological importance of recurrent fires. The ecological effects of fencing probably cannot be disentangled from the other factors it enables or accompanies, such as water development, reduced herd mobility, and land tenure rationalization; suffice to say that fragmentation is considered a major threat to rangelands worldwide .
The magnitude of the influence of predators on ecosystem processes is controversial , but there is wide agreement that the consequences of long-term fire suppression are profound .Critical physical geography reveals the concatenation of particular events that influenced the Coyote-Proof Pasture Experiment, while simultaneously illuminating the institutional and political conditions that enabled it to have such widespread effects. We can then ask new questions about present-day issues and debates concerning rangeland conservation and management. In recent decades, scientists and environmentalists have challenged many predator control programs, and some extirpated predators, such as wolves, have been protected and/or reintroduced in portions of their former species ranges. But fencing is rarely challenged. In view of the history recounted here, one has to wonder if restoring predators can only be compatible with continued range livestock production if herding, too, is restored—in which case fences may no longer be necessary.Bronson’s words proved prophetic: the Student Garden Project that Alan Chadwick and his student apprentices brought to life at UC Santa Cruz starting in 1967—and all that has grown from it—have indeed had a major impact on food and farming systems over the past four decades. Chadwick and his apprentices not only created a vibrant organic garden—they set a precedent for forty years of groundbreaking work in sustainable food and agriculture education, research, and public service at UCSC. The garden sparked the growth of a 25-acre organic campus farm and an internationally known apprentice training course, as well as cutting edge programs in food systems and organic farming research and extension, national and international work in agroecology, a model farm-to-college program, an award-winning children’s garden, and much more. “We are small but mighty—an incubator for innovation,” says Sheldon Kamieniecki, dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCSC. “Our influence proves you don’t have to be a big ag school to have major impacts on farming and food distribution.” In this article we’ll take a brief look back at the Farm & Garden’s history and examine some of the innovative ways that the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems continues to stay at the cutting edge of sustainable food and agriculture research, education, and public service.Beginning in 1967, long before sustainability became part of the vernacular, students at UC Santa Cruz were practicing organic gardening under Chadwick’s exacting direction. Chadwick had been brought aboard at the fledgling campus to start a garden project that would help give students a “sense of place” amidst the chaos of construction at the newest of the University of California campuses. Chadwick’s students formed the core of an informal student “apprenticeship,” working alongside him to transform a chaparral-covered slope in what was then the heart of the growing campus into a lush, vibrant organic garden. This apprenticeship approach to teaching—in which instructors worked side-by-side with the students, gradually giving them increased responsibility—would become a hallmark of the training approach used at UC Santa Cruz. Inspired by the garden’s success, students lobbied for a larger plot of ground on which to put Chadwick’s organic practices to work. In 1971, seventeen acres on the lower campus were set aside for an organic campus farm. Later expanded to twenty-five acres, blueberry packaging containers the UCSC Farm became a demonstration and teaching site for small- and medium-scale organic farming techniques. Faculty and student involvement in the garden and farm grew in the 1970s with courses in organic horticulture and agriculture offered as “practicums” through the Environmental Studies Department, as well as appropriate technology and natural history classes based at the farm. Students took advantage of opportunities provided by the farm and garden to design thesis projects and learn through independent studies. Students and staff planted orchards, windbreaks, and perennial borders, creating a diversified organic farm on the growing campus.
In 1975, the loosely organized apprenticeship that began under Chadwick’s direction was formalized into a full time, year-round program offered through UC Santa Cruz Extension. The Apprenticeship Program was the first university-based program to offer students intensive academic and experiential training in organic gardening and farming techniques. With a dedicated work force, the original Garden Project expanded and the farm grew to include tractor-cultivated row crops, as well as hand-worked garden beds, generating enough produce to support a small direct marketing and wholesale effort, and establishing one of California’s first organic “farmers’ markets.”The late 1970s saw increasing concern over the environmental and social effects of conventional farming, from pesticide pollution and soil erosion to the impoverished status of farm workers. The Environmental Studies faculty recognized that the UCSC Farm & Garden projects held potential for wider academic and research applications that could address such issues. To help develop that potential, Steve Gliessman was hired in 1980 to create the Agroecology Program—this was the first University of California program to focus specifically on what would come to be called “sustainable” agriculture. Recognizing that sustainability required social as well as environmental changes, the Agroecology Program hired social scientist Patricia Allen in 1984. Allen initiated the nation’s first work on social issues in sustainable agriculture, addressing topics such as labor, gender, and access to food. Allen also organized and spearheaded the first University of California systemwide conference on agricultural sustainability in 1985. In addition to its work with academic groups, the Agroecology Program also created ties with local, small-scale growers. In 1989 the program hired entomologist Sean Swezey and began a Farm Extension effort to serve growers interested in organic farming techniques. This was the first public organic extension service offered in the U.S. Program researchers worked with local growers on their farms on studies examining the transition from conventional to organic management in crops such as strawberries, apples, artichokes, and cotton. This work took a unique “whole systems” approach that included research on soil fertility, pest control, and economic impacts. In 1994 the Agroecology Program was renamed the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, to better reflect its blend of natural and social sciences work. In 1997, agroecologist Carol Shennan was hired as the center’s director. Shennan brought an interest in agroecosystems and landscape ecology and developed a focus on intersections among agroecology, environment, and community. In 2007 Patricia Allen was appointed director, and continues her work to address various social issues in sustainable agriculture .Over the past decade the growing interest in organic food and alternative food initiatives, such as farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture , farm-to-college programs, and school gardens has heightened the need for research and education in these areas. Building on its history of innovations, CASFS has expanded its work to respond to these needs. Center members provide training materials and expertise to college programs around the country; conduct research to analyze and improve organic farming practices and minimize farming’s impact on natural resources; and analyze the latest trends in consumer interests, food equity issues, and alternative food systems. The growing Farm-to-College effort at UCSC is creating new ways for CASFS to work with students, staff, and faculty to develop a food system that is environmentally sound and socially just. Some of the highlights of work now taking place at CASFS include: High school students in a new youth empowerment program based at the UCSC Farm, with flowers from their farm plot; these were donated to a Santa Cruz family shelter. Trend-setting research and scholarship on social issues in the agrifood system, with current fields of study including perceptions of and priorities for social justice in the agrifood system, farm-to-institution programs, food-system localization efforts, gender issues in agrifood systems, priorities and pedagogies in sustainable agriculture education, and consumer interests and preferences. Basic and applied natural science research on ways to conserve nutrients on organic farms, minimize the impacts of farming on surrounding ecosystems, and manage pests and diseases with organically acceptable techniques, including an innovative approach to minimizing pest damage in strawberries .