Food takes spotlight at UC Merced Earth Day

Food and farmers markets were the focus of UC Merced’s annual celebration of the planet Thursday.

The university makes an effort every year to generate excitement around Earth Day, a day set aside to be mindful about the environment. It’s been observed nationally on April 22 since 1970.

Hoaithi Dang, chairman of the Student Sustainability Council, said the group selected food as this year’s theme because of its important place in our culture and daily lives, and students don’t necessarily know about locally grown foods.

“I think it’s a conversation brought up a lot,” the 19-year-old said.

To that end, the council invited eight local farmers to the campus to show off their products as a trial run at a weekly farmers market for the 6,700-student campus, Dang said.

Clubs, farmers and other organizations lined Scholars Lane to push recycling, water conservation and other earth-friendly topics.

Tom Jackson, a member of the family that runs Shasky Farms in Le Grand, was on campus with lemons, cherries, walnuts and other locally grown foods. “We do about 12 markets a week May to October,” he said.

The event’s organizers were looking to get students to think about the food they buy at the supermarket and to clear up misconceptions, according to Gabriel Morabe, 21, an intern with the school’s Office of Sustainability.

Advocates say eating locally grown foods not only keep dollars in the local economy, but also reduces the amount of greenhouse gases spewed by trucks bringing in products from out of the area.

UC Merced has a goal to reach its “triple net zero” commitment by 2020, which is to consume zero net energy through efficiency and renewable energy production, produce zero landfill waste and prevent as much carbon emissions as the university produces.

Colleen McCormick, director of the Office of Sustainability, noted that other campuses in the UC system observe Earth Day, but said Merced wants to go further.

“We have aspirations to be recognized by the University of California as the sustainability campus,” she said.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 7:22 PM with the headline "Food takes spotlight at UC Merced Earth Day."