Ecological Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems Program
Over the past decade, OAEC has played an active role in national and statewide movements for sustainable agriculture and food systems. We have had the unique opportunity to base our analysis, education and advocacy in hands-on experience as one of California’s oldest organic seed diversity research and demonstration sites.
In 2008 OAEC’s leadership through the Ecological Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems Program will be applied to the following campaigns, coalitions and organizations:
Californians for GE-Free Agriculture
In 2002, OAEC co-founded a California coalition of farming, environmental and consumer organizations. Other coalition members include Community Alliance with Family Farmers, California Certified Organic Farmers, Ecological Farming Association, Center for Food Safety, Organic Consumers Association, Genetic Engineering Action Network, and Four Elements Farm. OAEC serves as the fiscal sponsor for the coalition, and OAEC staffer Renata Brillinger serves as Campaign Coordinator.
The coalition’s main campaign is working with California rice farmers, millers and processors to reject the biotech corporations’ plans to introduce both herbicide-tolerant and drug-producing genetically engineered rice into California farms. The coalition is also monitoring other GE crops proposed for commercialization in the state, and we are organizing farmers and consumers to reject them.
To get involved with Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, contact Renata Brillinger at (707) 874-0316, or click here: www.calgefree.org.
Genetic Engineering Action Network
OAEC was one of some 30 co-founders of the Genetic Engineering Action Network (GEAN) — the national anti-GE coalition. Dave Henson currently serves on the national steering committee, elected by GEAN’s member groups. GEAN is serving as a resource for and helping coordinate national anti-GE grassroots strategies.
Wild Farm Alliance
OAEC was one of a dozen co-founders of this national organization that brings together conservation biologists and farming advocates to support landscape-scale habitat connectivity and ecological permeability in major farming areas of the US. Dave Henson serves on the Board of Directors of the WFA, and OAEC is a featured farm in the book Farming With the Wild (Dan Imhoff and Roberto Carra, Sierra Club Books, 2003).
Strategic Planning and Facilitation for Other Sustainable Agriculture Organizations and Networks
OAEC Ecological Agriculture Program staff have served as facilitators and strategy consultants to many other organizations and networks in the California sustainable food and agriculture movement. In the past few years, OAEC staff supported organizational development processes and programs of California Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, Food Matters in Sonoma County, Sonoma Land Trust, Sustainable Cotton Project, California FarmLink, California Food and Justice Coalition, Sustainable Agrifood Systems Activist-Researcher Consortium, and many others.
For more information about OAEC’s Ecological Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems Program, contact Dave Henson at (707) 874-1557 ext. 214.