Fortino Morales III || Photo courtesy of UC Food Observer
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We can't fix all the problems, but it's really also about starting to ask deeper questions about the food system, sustainability and food access. The work is both theoretical and experiential. The garden provides a tangible answer to some of these things. - Fortino Morales, III
Fortino Morales III is making a big impact on raising awareness about food access on the UC Riverside campus. His work is part of the University of California's Global Food Initiative (GFI), which seeks to harness UC's resources to address one of the most compelling issues of our time: how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a growing world population.
Fortino joined the GFI team when he was an undergraduate student studying environmental sciences. He's since become manager of UC Riverside's community garden - R'Garden - an enterprise he helped launch as a student activist. Learn more about the contributions of the UC Riverside campus to the Global Food Initiative here.
Most recently, Fortino has been named one of UC's 30 Under 30 award winners, for his significant contributions to improving the food system.
I recently caught up with Fortino to learn more about his journey.
What was the original purpose of the garden in 2009? How did this community garden represent a partnership between the students, UC Riverside and local Salvation Army looking for local fresh food for its clients?
The garden began as a student-led effort in 2007. The idea was to get a garden going to provide a unique place to learn about sustainability, the food system and hands-on growing. My involvement began with a student organization called Sustainable UCR. We got a petition going to see if the UCR administration was up for something like this.
Credit: Carlos Puma
During the process we got good reception from the entire campus community: faculty, staff and students were all interested. At the same time, the Salvation Army approached UCR to develop a partnership around a food program. It was during the Economic Crisis and the Salvation Army was seeing a huge increase in people utilizing their food box program. There were lots of families coming out to the food box giveaway, but the Salvation Army could only provide canned and dry goods. They wanted to give fresh produce, to meet the nutritional needs of children. UCR is of course a land-grant institution part of the campus' mission focuses on agricultural research. There are hundreds of acres of agricultural fields here. A partnership seemed natural.
That's where the first initial two-year pilot program on acre started.
What's been cool is since the very beginning, there has been an understanding of the importance of sustainability and how it links with the social needs within the local community. We've also explored the global implications of food security. All of these things are at the core of what we do in the garden.
We can't fix all the problems, but it's really also about starting to ask deeper questions about the food system, sustainability and food access. The work is both theoretical and experiential. The garden provides a tangible answer to some of these things.
How has the garden grown over the years? How is the garden teaching students and the community about local food?
Credit: Tracey Walters
The work has grown in a lot of ways. One of the more immediate ways is my personal involvement [as coordinator]. I was a student then and we were all in a learning mode. Many of us were from Southern California and had little information about agriculture we didn't know how to grow fruits and vegetables. We got a lot of help from faculty, from staff, from community members and outside organizations. We developed an informal education program that included plant biology, gardening basics and more. We began to formalize this work into an urban garden seminar series. It was student-led, in conjunction with the campus; it became a 1-unit seminar on the food system and growing food. So we began a process of utilizing the garden as an instructional space as well as a food production space.
Before this student-initiated course, UCR didn't have that. We carved it out ourselves as students. It's really cool, and it's evolved into official R' Courses. It's provided a template for student-led/organized courses in other areas. We went through the Academic Senate. It's been amazing to see this and be involved in the process.
In terms of the physical space we've had changes there, too. We had to find a new location after the pilot program a more permanent space. The garden course continued without an actual garden space; the students at the time focused the course on locating new space. It got a bit contentious for a couple of months.
Dr. Peggy Mauk, a UC ANR Cooperative Extension specialist and Director of UCR's Department of Agricultural Operations, came in and said they had space for our garden on the Agricultural Experiment Station. That unit manages about 500 acres of ag research land on the campus. She offered an area to students. That's when we got the new space. It's 3.2 acres in total, and the campus also funded a staff position, which is where I came back into the picture.
Credit: Carlos Puma
We opened about four years ago in this location. We're still developing it and offering new courses. Other classes are incorporating the space in their coursework. Students have to provide a certain number of volunteer hours. It's really interesting, because the classes utilizing the space are not just limited to environmental science
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Fortino Morales III || Photo courtesy of UC Food Observer 
