SCU’s Environmental Justice and Common Good Initiative (EJ & CGI) Food and Climate Justice Program lead, Chris Bacon (Associate Professor and Chair Environmental Studies and Sciences Department) Collaborated Veggielution to develop a $217,000 project funded by the County of Santa Clara. Veggielution is the lead agency for this project that aims to create a more diverse, equitable, and resilient regional food economy, and foster food justice through education and action to address inequities in East San Jose.  As the key partner in this project, the SCU team will manage a $67,000 subaward, as Bacon will work with student researchers, EJ & CGI’s research coordinator, and Veggielution staff to conduct a feasibility study and policy analysis about the potential to link small-scale food entrepreneurs to values-based purchasing efforts, such as the Good Food Purchasing Program, which is partnering with Santa Clara County Hospitals to offer more nutritions, lower-carbon, and sustainable meals. The SCU team will also co-produce an agroecology, urban agriculture and food policy summer short-course and help design a food systems dashboard with collaboration from C.J. Gabbe (ESS). To collect the data student researchers will help conduct interviews, surveys, and focus groups as well as compile, analyze, and display demographic and food systems data.   Veggielution recently hired SCU food justice lab alumnus, Antonio Amore Rojas (ESS and Management ‘23),  to work as the cooperative manager for a new enterprise they will be developing as part of this project. 

Caption: Veggielution’s Farm Stand offers farm fresh vegetables that are harvested every week by staff members and volunteers. Residents interested in volunteering to pick crops can sign up online at veggielution.org/farming. Photo Courtesy of Veggielution