Sparrows and Circuit Boards

On Monday, August 30th, Local Dirt features two guests. First, we discuss sparrows and migratory behavior. Second is electronics 101: the simplicity and complexity of the technology in our lives.

The first half of the show features a conversation with Zoltan Nemeth, a Post-Doc at UC Davis working with migratory birds, investigating the role of hormones and the endocrine system in the white-crowned sparrow. Nemeth's work tracks the inter-continental flight path of the birds, as well as the stresses that the birds encounter, as their habitat is destroyed, their food supply is restricted by urbanization, and chemicals in the form of pesticides accumulate in the species' bodies, reducing their population.

The second half of the show features Steve, a Davis community member who is an electronics whiz, to say the least. He is an electrical engineer who, in this half hour, discusses he role of electronics in our lives, the value of the basic knowledge of how to build electronics, as well as using available knowledge and imagination to design and build, well, anything you might imagine.

To listen to the show about sparrows and circuit boards, listen here!

Forage Davis

Village Harvest gleans thousands of pounds of fruit each year!

Village Harvest Davis. Village Harvest's Greg Gibbs joined us to talk about the community-run Village Harvest Davis program, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that harvests residential fruit trees in the City of Davis and re-distributes would-be wasted fruit to family services and emergency food aid agencies in Yolo County. Year to date, Village Harvest has gleaned over 38 thousand pounds of unwanted fruit from community members trees. Greg talks about the logistics of managing the harvesting and redistribution of all that fruit, including details about their 300+ fruit tree database and team of volunteers ranging from the ages of four to 91 years old! (begins at 03:00min)

Camilla with a Turkey Tail mushroom in Kauai. 

Wild Food Foraging in Northern California. Camilla Hinshaw Barry, owner of Cache Creek Inn, a boutique Bed and Breakfast in Rumsey, CA, joins Local Dirt to talk about wild food and foraging in Northern California. Camilla started her foraging adventures in the bay area when she first moved to California nearly 30 years ago. She looks for wild food and other things to forage wherever she travels across the world. Camilla shares foraging adventures from as far away as Kabul to as close as the Davis Amtrak Station. Now residing in the beautiful Capay Valley, Camilla keeps up two blogs about her foraging adventures and other things at Cache Creek Inn blog and Rumsey Ramblings. (begins at 23:00min)

Nick with his mobile fruit harvester in Kauai.

Davis Fruit Trees Map. Nick Barry, founder of Davis Dollars Community Currency and resident of Davis, CA, joined his mom, Camilla, on air to talk about his many foraging adventures, including the time he built a mobile fruit harvester that he used when traveling to Kauai during family trips to harvest coconuts, mangoes and jackfruit. Nick started the Davis Fruit Trees Map, a pubic and collaborative map which has turned into a popular community resource for wild food loving Davis-ites! Check out the fruit tree map online and the Davi wiki site dedicated to fruit trees in Davis. (begins at 43:25min)

Please note: be sure to only forage food in public places. If the food is on private property. 

Music.
Tonight's show featured music from Putamayo's Music from the Coffee Lands.

Listen Up!
To listen to this week's show, you can visit this show link. Save this file to your hard drive and listen on your personal digital music device! Right-click on this link and choose 'Save as..."

Hummingbirds and their Behavior; Paulina Gonzalez

Today's show features Paulina Gonzalez, a PHD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. We speak with her about her work with hummingbird behavior. On the second half of the show, we will bring you past coverage of an interview with Temple Grandin, who spoke at Eco Fair Marin. 

Listen to the show from 8-6-12 here!

Mushrooms with Back to the Roots, Dining Out Parody, Self Help Enterprises and The Busy Trap

Alejandro Zelez and Nikhil Arora

Mushrooms with Back to the Roots
Nikhil Arora from Bach to the Roots, makers of the home-mushroom growing kit, joins Local Dirt to discuss the business he and college friend, Alejandro Velez, founded after graduating from UC Berkeley in 2009.

Inspired by a class lecture, Nikhil and Alejandro began growing mushrooms in Alejandro's fraternity house off of used coffee grounds from Peet's Coffee during their final semester at UC Berkeley. Since then, Nikhil and Alejandro have grown a successful, innovative business that encourages people across the nation to become more connected to their food by growing it themselves with the Back to the Roots home mushroom growing kits.

Learn more about Back to the Roots - check out their website http://www.backtotheroots.com/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/backtotheroots!

"I will be your server"

Bob Marshall and wife

By Joel Stein
Jeremy and Dani act out the recent New Yorker piece by Bill Stein parodying the latests and greatest in the trendy restaurant world. Enjoy! Check out the written piece at the New Yorker online!

Self Help Enterprises with Jeremy Raff and Bob Marshall
Former Local Dirt Radio co-host, Jeremy Raff, introduces his recent audio piece from RCAC's Origins series featuring Bob Marshall. Marshall talks about World War II, Quakers, working through the turmoil of a sudden death and self-help housing today.

Check out the photo slide show that accompanies the audio here: http://vimeo.com/45276746


Bob Marshall: Self-Help Enterprises from Jeremy Raff on Vimeo.


The Busy Trap
By Tim Kreider
Dani reads an excerpt of 'The Busy Trap' a recent opinion piece int he New York Times by Tim Kreider and chats with Jeremy and Becky about what being 'busy' means for the average college student.

Music!
This show features music from Patrick Watson and Iron &Wine.

LISTEN UP!
Missed the show? Check it out here!
To download this link to your hard drive, right click on the link and hit 'save-as'. 

Occupy the Farm: The Gill Tract in Albany, CA

Today's show covers the Gill Tract in Albany, where the Occupy movement took a new step: toward farmland. The occupation of the farmland is described as a reclaiming of the land for the betterment of the community. however, the occupation quickly came under police pressure, until a raid finally occurred, and many of the plants were destroyed.
http://www.takebackthetract.com/images/stories/occupy-the-farm.jpgWe speak with activists from the tract to discuss its significance.

For more information, visit http://www.takebackthetract.com/

Compassion in Davis, Farm Bill, and Cache Creek Casino Farmland

Today's show features in-studio guest David Breaux, aka the Compassion Man, who has been on local dirt. Tune in for a conversation about compassion, what is means, and 'seeing essence' in others.

After, hear a video from Live Real Now about the importance of the Farm Bill : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mui3_dEHHEY

Last, we discuss new farmland developments in the Cache Creek area and its impact on local residents. Check out more at: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Yolo-tribe-adds-farms-to-casino-neighbors-unhappy-3654203.php

Garth Lenz: The True Cost of Oil

Alberta Tar Sands and the True Cost of Oil
The Education for Sustainable Living Program, a student-organized seminar at UC Davis, invited TEDx speaker and conservation photographer Garth Lenz to campus to talk about his work photographing the Alberta Tar Sands mining for oil in Canada. Garth has used his photography to capture the destruction of Canada's Boreal wetlands by industry seeking the wetlands rich source of oil.

To see a video of Garth Lenz' TEDx talk, visit this link.

Photos Courtesy APhotoEditor.org

LISTEN UP!
To listen to Garth Lenz present at the Education for Sustainable Living Program presentation at UC Davis on Wednesday, May 15th 2012, visit this link. 

Mushrooms: Cultivation, Foraging and Other Uses; Education for Sustainable Living and new Davis Seed Library!

Baby mushrooms!

Mushrooms: Cultivation, Foraging and Other Uses
Dr. Mike Davis, professor withing the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis and Cooperative Extension Specialist, joined us today to discuss mushrooms! Dr. Davis teaches the popular UC Davis course on mushroom identification and cultivation. Davis spoke about wild mushroom foraging, various medicinal uses of mushrooms, mushrooms and bio-remediation and home mushroom cultivation.

Interested in growing mushrooms on your own? Check out the Fungii Perfecti and keep your ear out for upcoming workshops offered by Professor Davis in the community!

Students from the Education for Sustainable Living Program

Education for Sustainable Living Program - Action Research Team recaps 2012
Students in the Education for Sustainable Living Program, which concluded it's quarter-long seminar series last week, presented one of their final Action Research Team projects at the annual UC Davis Sustainability Summit. Students Samantha Lubow, Tanzi Jackson and Mollie Ogaz talk about their research at the UC Davis Farmers Market, striving to create a zero-waste market and encourage composting and recycling at the UC Davis Silo Union.

New Davis Seed Bank!
Co-host Anna Ruth Crittenden chats with Dani about the brand new Davis Seed Bank, housed in the yert at the Domes. Folks in the community can now check out and grow out heirloom seeds of all varieties! Brought to you by the Davis Seed Savers Alliance. Look forward to upcoming workshops on seed saving from the DSSA in the next year!

Music!
This week's show featured music from Stimming, Alexander and some snake-charming music selected by the lovely William and Anna Truth!

Listen up!
To listen to this week's show, visit this link!
You can also save the audio to your hard drive by right clicking the link and selecting 'save as'.

Edible Landscaping with Rosalind Creasy and the UC Davis Sustainability Summit

Rosalind Creasy is the award-winning author of Edible Landscaping. She is a landscape designer who took the field in a more delicious, sustainable and ecological direction by landscaping with edible vegetables, fruit trees and flowers. She talked with us about the historical significance of ornamental gardens and how she was inspired to mix edible plants with ornamentals from her international travels. She also shared some tips on how to transform a yard into a more beautiful edible garden and the benefits that come from having such diversity. Check out her website to learn more about edible landscaping and to see some beautiful photos of such gardens: http://www.rosalindcreasy.com/







In the first half of the show we played excerpts from the UC Davis Sustainability Summit. This summit was held to celebrate the sustainable innovations that have taken place on campus and to recognize the efforts of forward-thinking students, faculty and staff at UC Davis. Talks by Tim McNeil of the Design Museum and Carol Shu of the Aggie ReStore were played on air. To get more info about the Aggie ReStore visit their website: http://aggierestore.ucdavis.edu/


Missed the show? Listen to it here!

Alternative Medicine: Herbal Healing

Today's Local Dirt features two herbalists in the Davis and Sonoma areas.

For the first half of the show we speak with Leslie Gardener, the garden director at the California School of Herbal Studies and author of "Life in the Medicine".
Leslie is also the director of the Sonoma County Herb Exchange and can be reached at herbexch@sonic.net

Then we speak with Kami McBride, of the Living Awareness Institute and author of "The Herbal Kitchen".

The show featured a conversation about the significance of herbal medicine today, as an alternative to pharmaceutical options.

Davis Bicycles!, Red Bike and Green and bike/transportation safety

Leo Rainer came to the studio and talked about the work that Davis Bicycles! does in Davis to advocate for better transportation policies. Davis Bicycles! is a citizen advocacy group that is made up of volunteers who strive to promote biking by working with the local government. They also put on events throughout the year, like a film festival and a bike loopalooza, to celebrate bike riding. To find out more or to get involved go to their website: www.davisbicycles.org


Russell Neches also came by the studio to talk with us about bike safety and his personal passion for improving safety in our community. He created a crash map to document the occurrence and details of bike accidents in Davis to see how things could be improved. He is currently a graduate student and serves on the Davis Safety and Parking Advisory Commission.





Our third guest on the show was Jenna Burton, the founder of Red Bike and Green. Taken from their website: Red, Bike and Green is a community-building collective of Black urban cyclists seeking to improve the physical and mental health, economy and local environment of African Americans by creating a relevant and sustainable Black bike culture.  Jenna shared with us how RBG started with just a few friends and now has chapters opening in Chicago and Atlanta. Check out their website for more info: www.redbikeandgreen.com 

You can listen to the show by clicking here, or right-click to download it to your computer. 

Sociolgy and Entomology: An In-Studio Cross Pollination Session

Today we speak with Katharine Ullman from the Entomology department about her work with honeybees and pollinators in Yolo COunty. We then speak with Bruce Haynes from the Sociology department. Prof Haynes is a specialist in race and ethnicity, whose most recent work is called "The Ghetto: Contemporary Global Issues and Controversies"


Info on honey bee swarms: http://beebiology.ucdavis.edu/HONEYBEES/swarms.html
    Info on collective decision making in honey bees: http://ucanr.org/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=6634
    Info on how honey bees and humans are similar: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7114/pdf/443893a.pdf
    you can also look at research conducted by Brian Johnson (UC Davis    Entomology) who studies honey bee behavior and evolution http://johnsonlabucdavis.wordpress.com/    and the work of Gene Robinson (U. Illinois) http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/from-society-to-genes-with-the-honey-bee/1
    Info on native bees can be found at http://www.xerces.org    or look at the Williams Lab website here: http://polleneaters.wordpress.com/   


Click here to listen to the show!

Celebrate 7 years of Local Dirt Radio on Monday, April 23rd

To our listeners and friends of Local Dirt Radio and KDVS,

We are excited to be celebrating over seven years of Local Dirt programming, and wouldn’t have been able to do it without our amazing, student-run host station, KDVS, at the UC Davis campus! This coming week, we will also be celebrating KDVS’ contribution to the campus and local community for the past 39 years during our annual fundraiser week. Local Dirt Radio has been a core part of KDVS’ public affairs program for many years with numerous students and community members contributing to its programming efforts. 

Your lovely Local Dirt co-hosts, Anna Truth, Neda and Dani, will be hosting a special fundraiser program on Monday, April 23^rd from 5-6pm during KDVS’ annual fundraiser week! Our show goal is to raise $1,000 for KDVS during this hour of programming.

This will be your opportunity to support our amazing host station, KDVS, and also chat with us about why you love KDVS and Local Dirt Radio! We promise you fun on-air games that may involve mystery produce items, worms, dirt and the like, live music, amazing premiums and an overall good time!

Some things about KDVS that you might not know!

The station is completely student run. To this day, KDVS continues its original mission: to provide the university with a laboratory for learning broadcast, production and managerial skills, and to provide its listening audience with diverse, challenging, noncommercial, freeform radio. KDVS is not funded by the University, only by students and by the community of listeners and supports who donate during fundraiser week. Our fundraiser goal for 2012 is $64,000 total, which will bring Davis and the surrounding community freeform radio for a year!

HOW TO DONATE
You can donate online - http://fundraiser.kdvs.org/
Call into the studio on Monday, April 23^rd from 5-6pm – 530.754.5387 or 877.399.5387

Thank you, friends, we hope to hear from you on Monday!

Cheers!

Dani, Neda, Anna Ruth

Local Dirt Radio
KDVS 90.3FM – Davis, CA
www.localdirtradio.com
www.kdvs.org

About Local Dirt Radio...
Local Dirt began as project of Students for Sustainable Agriculture, and also a part of the Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign for the Community Alliance with Family Farms. Local Dirt's inaugural year was in 2005 with Temra Costa and Navina Khanna hosting. Past show co-hosts include Luis Sierra, Christie McCullen, Dori Stone, Alida Cantor, Rory ODwyer, Tianna DuPont, Natalie Yahr, Jeremy Raff and Victor Duraj as an engineer/recorder. Current co-hosts are Neda Yousefian, Anna Ruth Crittenden and Dani Lee.

Local Dirt airs live on KDVS 90.3FM from 5-6pm PST on Mondays. You can stream us live by visiting the KDVS website and clicking on 'listen now.'

About KDVS...
KDVS is freeform radio at its best, airing live from the University of California, Davis campus. The station is completely student run. To this day, KDVS continues its original mission: to provide the university with a laboratory for learning broadcast, production and managerial skills, and to provide its listening audience with diverse, challenging, noncommercial, freeform radio. Check out more about KDVS, visit their history page.

Bill McKibben speaks at UC Davis

This week Local Dirt brings you full coverage of Bill Mckibbin's talk given earlier this morning at the Alumni Center on the UC Davis campus. McKibben is an environmentalist, writer and activist focused on raising awareness of global warming and founder of 350.org. He wrote the first book about global warming in 1989, called "The End of Nature". His speech focuses on the need to coordinate local efforts with global coordinated action to immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Putah Creek Council and UCD chapter of Engineers Without Borders

Amelia Holmes, the president of the UC Davis chapter of Engineers Without Borders came to the studio today and talked with us about the work that UCD students and faculty are doing as members of EWB. They have been working in Uganda to improve access to clean water (home water filtration projects) and sanitation (latrine projects). They are also putting together a project in Bolivia that would increase access to water. To learn more and to contact EWB go to their website: www.ewb.ucdavis.edu.









Libby Earthman, the executive director of the Putah Creek Council and Rich Marovich, the streamkeeper for the Putah Creek, spoke with Local Dirt about the history of the creek and its transformations from a creek to a gravel pit and back to a creek. It is a very inspiring story of a group of people revitalizing their community through volunteerism, activism and collaboration. The Putah Creek Council is always looking for volunteers and is supported through membership and donations. Contact them through their website: www.putahcreekcouncil.org/



Upcoming Events:

This Friday is the Russell Ranch Barn Dance!

Music on today's show from Driving with Fergus and Los Cafres and Two Many Banjos.

To listen to this week's show, visit this show link! Enjoy!
You can also download the audio file by right clicking the link and saving it to your hard drive! 

Methyl Iodide and Publix Fast for Fair Food

Methyl Iodide pulled from US market.

Toxic pesticide, Methyl Iodide, pulled from American markets. 

Back in 2010, Methyl Bromide, a commonly used pesticide for fumigation, was slated to be phased out due to the International Montreal Protocol treaty due to depletion of the ozone layer. Methyl iodide was proposed to replace methyl bromide for use as an agricultural fumigant common in strawberry production. Despite controversy and heavy campaigning against the registering of the newly proposed fumigant by environmentalist and environmental justice activists, Methyl Iodide was recently registered in 2011 within the state of California for accepted fumigant use. 

Methyl iodide, a known carcinogen, was recently pulled fromthe market by its makers due to ‘financial reasons’. We welcomed back Paul Towers from Pesticide Action Network to Local Dirt Radio to give us a look into the campaign to prevent methyl iodide from becoming a registered agriculture fumigant over the past several years.

Liz Fitzgerald, Community Organizer with the CIW.

Florida: Fast for Fair Food at Publix Supermarkets. 

Liz Fitzgerald, former UC Davis student and community organizer with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the Student/Farmworker Alliance, just returned from Florida to help support further campaigning against Publix, one of the largest supermarket chains in North America. We welcome Liz back on to Local Dirt to provide an update on the latest CIW victory with Trader Joes and the progress the CIW has made with the Campaign for Fair Food, encouraging larger corporate food buyers to pay one penny more per pound for all of the tomatoes harvested in the Immokalee, FL region, where farmworkers have historically been living and working in unjust conditions.

Be sure to check out Liz's latest musical contributions to the Campaign for Fair Food below!

Announcements!

• Check out the UC Davis Russell Ranch Barn Dance on Friday, April 13th from 7-11pm! Contra Dancing and live music with Driving with Fergus! Potluck!
• Tours of the UC Davis Student Farm are happening this week! Wednesday, April 4th, 10-11am. Thursday, April 5th, 10-11am. Friday April 7th, 3-4pm.
• The UC Davis Farmers Market is re-launching this spring. Stop by the Silo Patio between 10am-2:30pm on Wednesday, April 4th! Free food, live entertainment, buttons, art, facepainting and more!

Music!

Music on this week's show featured the following artists: 

• Bon Iver, Bon Iver
• The Shins, Wincing the Night Away

LISTEN UP!

To listen to this week's show, visit this show link! Enjoy!
You can also download the audio file by right clicking the link and saving it to your hard drive! 

World Water Day, Cool Davis Initiative and YERT the film

As World Water Day approaches we decided to play a piece from March 2010 where Dani interviewed Alexa La Plante from the Sacramento committee of Water for People. Alexa talked about the numerous water issues both locally and globally that impact our health and our environment. She shared what Water for People is working on to raise awareness and provide clean drinking water for people throughout the world.

We felt that this was also timely with the release of the report Addressing Nitrate in California's Drinking Water by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. The report states that "Nitrate contamination is widespread and increasing. Groundwater data show that 57% of the current population in the study area (Tulare Basin and Salinas Valley) use a community public water system with recorded raw (untreated) nitrate concentrations that have exceeded the MCL at least once between 2006 and 2010. Continued basin-wide trends in nitrate groundwater concentration may raise the affected population to nearly 80% by 2050. Most of this population is protected by water system treatment, or alternative wells, at additional cost. But about 10% of the current population is at risk of nitrate contamination in their delivered drinking water, primarily in small systems and self-supplied households."



Also on the show we had Chris Granger from the Cool Davis Initiative come and talk about their work to help the community reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and change behavior towards a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle. One upcoming project, starting on April 1, is with the Cool California Challenge where 10 cities in California are competing to be the "coolest" city measured in terms of household energy efficiency and transportation. To learn more and to register in the Cool California Challenge as an individual or as a household, go to the website: http://www.coolcalifornia.org/community-challenge





The Cool Davis Initiative is hosting the screening of the film YERT: Your Environmental Roadtrip tomorrow night at the Veteran's Memorial Theater at 6:15pm. To reserve a ticket go here: http://cooldavisYERT.eventbrite.com/





We played music by Amadou & Mairam, Cesaria Evora and Sly & The Family Stone. 


Missed the show? No problem! Click here to listen!
You can also download the audio file by right clicking on the link and saving it to your hard drive!

Fresh SPIN Farm and the UC Davis Student Farm

We visited Fresh SPIN Farms back in February to learn more about their farm and to check out their Buddha's hand citrus tree! Cat Callaway, the farm manager, showed us around and shared the principles of SPIN farming. They have a CSA and hope to have more events on the farm. Check out their website for more info:  www.freshspinfarm.com. 

We also spoke with Edwina King, a graduate student who works at the UC Davis Student Farm, to find out what's happening as they transition from winter to spring crops. If you would like to volunteer or intern on the student farm you can! Just go and talk to the folks working at the farm, they are out there Monday-Friday from 8am-12pm. Check out their website to learn more: www.asi.ucdavis.edu/sf.










Upcoming Events:


Wed. March 14: Climate Refugees (film)  6:30-9pm, room 3001 PES, UC Davis  FREE

Tues. March 20: YERT: Your Environmental RoadTrip (film) Veteran's Memorial 203 E. 14th St. Davis CA. 6:15pm meet the producer Mark Dixon, film starts at 7pm. Suggested donation $5-20. 

Watch the trailer here and check out their website: www.yert.com

Fri. April 13: 2nd Annual SSA Barn Dance! 

Music on today's show: Portugal the Man, Culture, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and the Wailing Jennys.

Missed the show? No problem, you can still listen to it, just click here!

You can also download the audio file by right clicking on the link and saving it to your hard drive!

Preserving American Farmland, One Farm at a Time

Update: The Last Crop Film and One Farm at a Time Project. 

Farmers Jeff and Annie Main, from Good Humus Produce, have been working for over 10 years to ensure their land will continue to be farmed and managed organically after they retire.

The One Farm at a Time project gives community members the opportunity to invest in the future of the farms and farmers that provide their food. Jeff and Annie's farm, Good Humus Produce, located in Capay, CA, is the first family farm the project aims to preserve.

Film maker, Chuck Schultz, from BluePrint Productions and local farmer, Annie Main, join us to talk about Chuck's new film, The Last Crop, which delves into the nation-wide issue of an aging farmer population, farm succession and transition. 

The Agricultural Sustainability Institute hosted a free public screening of The Last Crop film, still a work in progress, followed by a panel presentation on Thursday, February 9th at UC Davis. View a trailer of the film here!

Panelists covered in today's show include, in order of appearance:
- Annie Main, Good Humus Produce
- Chuck Schultz, BluePrint Producitons
- Jeff Main, Good Humus Produce
- Edward Thompson, Jr, American Farmland Trust
- Melanie Madden, Davis Food Co-op 
- Rich Leavy, Full Belly Farm
- Jennifer Taylor, Center for Landbased Learning

To learn more about preserving American farmland, visit American Farmland Trust. To learn more about connecting beginning farmers in California to opportunities on existing farmland, visit California Farm Link.

News!
March 5th was a day of action across the nation!
- Sac Bee: Protestors begin march on California Capitol
- Grist.org: Publix humiliation: Workers, students fasting for fair food

Music!
This week's show featured Chris Dorman, Sufjan Stevens, Sandrine Kibertain, Les Escrocs, Te Vaka and Barefoot.

LISTEN UP!
To listen to this week's show, visit this show link. Enjoy!
You can also download the audio file by right clicking on the link and saving it to your hard drive!

Angela Davis Debrief

Angela Davis, former black panther, UC professor and prominent black activist in the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, spoke at the ARC pavillion last Thursday. In today's show we continue the discussion she helped start by hearing from Natalia Deeb Sossa from the Chicano/a Studies department, Sunaina maira from middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, and Bruce Haynes from Sociology.

Click here to listen to the show!

A piece on chocolate and The experience of Austin Smith on WWOOFing in Nepal

On the show today we played a talk by Alexandra Saunders that she gave at the event Chocolate held at the Mondavi Center on Feb 4. Alexandra is the CEO of Nuubia Chocolate and she is trying to raise awareness about the environmental impacts of palm oil plantations and how this issue relates to chocolate. While the talk was titled The Precious Cacao and Sustainability the main issue discussed here was the loss of rainforest for palm oil plantations and the encroachment on orangutan habitats. Take home message: read the label and buy chocolate that uses cocoa butter, not palm oil.

The second half of the show we heard about Austin Smith's adventures in Nepal as a WWOOFer. To learn more about WWOOF check out their website: http://www.wwoof.org/

Missed the show? No worries, you can listen to it by clicking HERE!

You can also download the audio file by right clicking on the link and saving it to your hard drive!

The Last Crop Film, One Farm at a Time and Day at the FARM 2.6

The Last Crop Film and One Farm at a Time Project.

Film maker, Chuck Schultz, from BluePrint Productions and local farmer, Annie Main, from Good Humus Produce join us to talk about Chuck's new film, The Last Crop, which delves into the nation-wide issue of an aging farmer population, farm succession and transition. Farmers Jeff and Annie Main have been working for over 10 years to ensure their land will continue to be farmed and managed organically after they retire.

Annie also talks about the latest initiative in their saga to preserve their farmland with the One Farm at a Time project. One Farm at a Time gives community members the opportunity to invest in the future of the farms and farmers that provide their food. Jeff and Annie's farm, Good Humus Produce, located in Capay, CA, is the first family farm the project aims to preserve.

The Agricultural Sustainability Institute will be hosting a free public screening of The Last Crop film, still a work in progress, followed by a panel presentation on Thursday, February 9th from 6:30-8:30pm in 1322 Storer Hall at UC Davis. Light snacks will be catered by the Davis Food Co-op. View a trailer of the film here!

A Day at the FARM 2.6.
Anna Ruth reports from the FARM 2.6 Day at the FARM event that happened this past Saturday. FARM is an alternative form of non-violent protest, reclaiming public space to build community, providing services for under served and transient populations and/or rehabilitating toxic land.

FARM hosted several workshops, including compost building, orchard irrigation, fruit tree planting, fiber and dye garden planting, beekeeping and more! To learn more about FARM and FARM 2.6, visit the FARM website!

Announcements!

• Students for Sustainable Agriculture is hosting a Seed Swap, February 14th at the Student Community Center
• Visit The Pantry at UC Davis, located in Lower Freeborn, for free stuff for UC Davis Students!
  

Music!
This week's show featured music from the West Nile Ramblers and Conor Oberst.

LISTEN UP!
To listen to this week's show, visit this show link. Enjoy!
You can also download the audio file by right clicking on the link and saving it to your hard drive!

Beginner Farmers at the Cloverleaf Farm, Part 3 and Fair Trade Bananas at UC Davis

Beginner Farmers Series: Cloverleaf Farm, Part 3

Big changes have come to the Cloverleaf Farm over the past three months. Sasha and Emma decide to bring on two new partners to help share the workload of their new farm. Local Dirt introduces the newest members of the team, Aubrey and Marissa, and hear why they are excited to be a part of the all-women farm team. Local Dirt joins the ladies in their first ever pruning workshop in their brand new fruit orchard. Check out the new Cloverleaf Farm website! And sign up for their blog! Photo courtesy of Eric Winford.

Fair Trade Bananas come to UC Davis.

UC Davis students Selina and Ari chat about banana production and consumer choice. Bananas are America's favorite fruit. The top five banana companies, including Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte, control 80% of the global banana production. Selina and Ari delve into the social injustices prevalent the global market for bananas. In an effort to encourage consumers to make the choice to purchase Fair Trade Certified products, including bananas, Selina and Ari will be working with their peers and UC Davis Dining Services to promote Fair Trade February on campus during the entire month of February!

Announcements.

• Seed Saving Workshop this Friday, February 3rd at the Bowley Center at UC Davis at 6:30pm!
• A Day at FARM 2.6 this Saturday, February 4th at 11:00am. Workshops include: tree planting, pruning, wood scouring, bee hive building, and many more. Following the workshops will be a darn dance, so bring your best square-dancing moves!

Music.

Music from Sufjan Stevens, Electro Coco, Max de Castro, The Abyssinians and Pamelo Mounk'a!

LISTEN UP!
To listen to this week's show, visit this show link. Enjoy!
You can also download the audio file by right clicking on the link and saving it to your hard drive!

Sustainable Food and Farming Conference, Joel Salatin, Labeling Genetically Modified Organisms

Today on the show we listened to coverage from the Sustainable Food and Farming Conference that happened this past weekend in Nevada county. Anna Ruth recorded talks by Michael Ableman and Joel Salatin. She also talked with David Edwards who is part of a grassroots coalition to require that foods containing GMO ingredients be labeled. To learn more about this campaign: http://www.labelgmos.org/

We also discussed GMOs and the recent decision by BASF, a German chemical company, to stop selling GM Amflora potatoes in Europe. The company cited widespread consumer opposition to their genetically modified products and has decided to focus their operations and sales in America and Asia. The only biotech crop now grown in Europe is a Monsanto corn variety.

Songs we played:

Dar Williams- As Cool As I Am

Woollen Kits- Out of Whack

P.F. Commando- Allt Ok

The Champs- Tequila

To listen to today's show click here!

Nyame Selassie: Ecobarrios USA, and Laurie Glover: author of "Off-the-road histories, California"

Today's show features Neda Yousefian's interview with Nyame Selassie about the Ecobarrios USA movement which is based out of the Bay Area and also working in Detroit, New Orleans, and Atlanta. For more information about the Ecobarrios movement check out their website: www.ecobarrios-usa.org. Like the Facebook page Ecobarrios USA by clicking here.

Then we spoke with Laurie Glover, a UC Davis lecturer, about her new book On the Road Histories, California. You will never see California the same way again! A great book about the history of this beautiful and diverse state.

Songs we played:

Jac et le Takeifa- Guissane

Fleet Foxes- Sun it Rises

Joni Mitchell- California

To listen to the show click here. (please excuse the minor tech difficulties we had at the beginning!)

Solar Panels in the Mojave & Cofed Retreat : Food, Politics, and Cooperative Business

For the first show of 2012, local Dirt co-host AnnaTruth covers the Cofed retreat in Berkeley, California. Tune in to hear from leaders, organizers and students who are doing work to change the world we live in, one coopreative at a time. AnnaTruth chats with Janaki Jagannath, a small farmer from Southern California and recent graduate of UC Davis, about what it takes to start a coop: organizing, business planning, fundraising and campaigning.

We then hear from Anna Isaacs, Cofed's Northwest regional organizer, and former worker-owner of the Flaming Eggplant, a cooperative cafe on the Evergreen State campus in Olympia, Washington. After traveling to Venezuela and working with farming, grocery, and food processing cooperatives, she became aware of the rich history of coops in the United States, which is what brings her to

Danny Spitzberg, lead trainer of cofed, formerly worked with Slow Food UW in Madison Wisconson

Vassar studetns Zach Zielman and Marshall Daily tell us about their draems of opening the Pumpkin Patch on the Vassar College campus