Building a Resilient Food System Starts with the Soil

November 18, 2020

Building a Resilient Food System Starts with the Soil

Seeing empty shelves in grocery stores last spring was a shock to many consumers, as most of us have never experienced that in our lifetime. It shone a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of our food system, and opened discussions on how we can better enforce this essential service.

While the food system and supply chain was quick to recover from any shortages, Associate Professor Sean Smukler looks at it as an opportune moment to study the impacts and prepare for any future setbacks. “This year has really helped to identify how fragile our food system is, throughout all stages of it,” he says. “If we want to avoid situations like this in the future, I would argue that resilience needs to start at the farm and specifically with the soil.”

Smukler is the principal investigator of the Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes (SAL) Lab. The lab’s goal is to contribute to understanding the ecology of and management for an agricultural system that meets current needs, without compromising the needs of future generations. “We work with farmers and managers of agricultural landscapes, to find ways to better monitor, protect and enhance biodiversity and the availability of ecosystem services.”

“In terms of impact, the COVID-19 pandemic happened very quickly, but we were also able to recover quickly,” says Smukler. “Something like climate change, which is happening on a slower scale and therefore harder to see, presents a much more challenging problem. The effects of which could be much more challenging to a vulnerable food system.”

The SAL lab works closely with farmers in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, and hopes to turn some of the future challenges they may face into opportunities. “Studies have shown that temperatures in the valley are expected to increase over the next couple decades, which on the one hand is good news, because farmers can expect to have significantly more growing days. On the other hand, it may introduce new challenges, such as new pests or crop diseases, or an increase need for irrigation as precipitation patterns change.”

For all of these challenges, it helps to start by looking at the foundation of food: soil. “Soils are the basis for building resilience,” says Smukler. “They are the key to any production, as they store water, cycle nutrients, help to resist disease and ultimately grow healthy crops.”

An important measure of soil quality is soil organic carbon. Siddhartho Paul, a recently graduated PhD student in the SAL lab, is the lead author on a paper published this summer that measured soil organic carbon in the Fraser Valley from 1984 to 2018. The paper was co-authored by Smukler, Lyndsey Dowell (another graduate student from the SAL lab), Nicholas Coops in the Faculty of Forestry, Mark Johnson in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Maja Krzic with the Faculties of Land and Food Systems and Forestry, and Dieter Geesing, the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture Provincial Soil Specialist.

In their findings, the group determined that on 61% of farms, soil organic carbon was in decline.

“With soil organic carbon being a key indicator of soil health, the findings of our study is alarming,” says Smukler. “We really need to see levels increasing.”

The study looked at land use change and agriculture production. Some management practices on farms that have been in continuous use since 1984 have been identified as possible reasons for the decline in soil organic carbon, such as intensive tillage which increases losses of carbon to the atmosphere and a lack of cover crop use which helps sequester the carbon back into the soil. The next step of the research will be looking to evaluate which specific methods are contributing to changes in soil organic carbon, and working with farmers to find solutions.

While resilience for the food system begins at the farm, a resilient farm is really a shared challenge. “Scientists need to work directly with farmers, consumers need to understand the situation that farmers are in, and policy makers need to understand what the science is saying and provide the resources to address it,” says Smukler.

New Faculty Profile: Risa Sargent

November 18, 2020

New Faculty Profile: Risa Sargent

Risa Sargent joined the Faculty in July 2020 as an Associate Professor in the Applied Biology program. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa. She has a BSc from the University of Calgary, and a MSc from Simon Fraser University, where she studied the timing of pollen production and stigma receptivity as a mechanism to prevent selffertilization, particularly in fireweed.

She completed her PhD at UBC with the Biodiversity Research Centre, where her research took a macroevolutionary turn.

“I was interested in the role animal pollination could have played in driving specialization and diversification in flowering plants,” says Sargent. “The theory of animal pollination may help answer why there are so many flowering plant species in comparison to conifers.” She was also a postdoctoral research associate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she took a more community approach to understand why certain plant species can co-exist, and the role that pollination may have in it.

Sargent’s current research focuses on how ecological context impacts plant-pollinator dynamics.

“There are around 450 species of bees in B.C., and around 800 in Canada. They are found everywhere, in gardens, parks, agricultural areas, forests and natural areas,” says Sargent. A large percentage of the food we produce in agricultural areas is reliant on bees. Key crops that at least partly rely on wild bees for pollination include cherries, peaches, apples, blueberries, squash, tomatoes, and many more. Even in plants that we do not eat the fruit of the crop (e.g., carrots, lettuce, beets), bees are important if we want to save the seeds for future plantings.

Yet for such an important species, we have very little data about them. “About 90% of the bee species in B.C. are solitary, meaning they do not live in colonies or hives,” says Sargent. “A solitary female bee will raise her young in cavities dug into the ground or sometimes in wood or other plant debris, depending on the species. This makes it difficult to study them, but there is a general concern that they are at risk. One of their primary threats is the conversion of wild lands to agriculture and urban use, which is where my lab’s current research lies.”

Canada is a good place to study this, as wild areas are regularly urbanized by our growing cities. “We should be asking ourselves, could we design cities and the landscapes around cities to provide better habitat for bees? Actions such as banning urban pesticide use that harm both pests and beneficial insects, or planning strategies that would dedicate more to wild habitat, would be very beneficial to bees and other species, like birds and butterflies,” says Sargent. “Cities that harbour a high diversity of wild species also tend to be nicer to live in.”

That would be good news for city dwellers with backyard or balcony gardens, which also rely on bees for pollination.

New Faculty Profile: Lindsay Cuff

November 18, 2020

New Faculty Profile: Lindsay Cuff

Lindsay Cuff is enjoying her return to Vancouver.

“It’s like a homecoming for me. I love the smell of the forest after it rains and the salty air fills me with joy.”

She joins UBC as an Assistant Professor of Teaching with a joint appointment in LFS and Forestry.

She lived in Vancouver from 2007-2009 while completing a UBC Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Since graduating from UBC, she’s had the chance to travel and work around the world. While her global experiences have been diverse, a common theme for Cuff is engaging with organizations that work towards social change and education.

One of these organizations is the New York City-based Karuna-Shechen, a non-profit that provides services to vulnerable populations in the Himalayan Region. These services include accessing health care, education and vocational training – programs to improve quality of life or livelihoods.

She worked as Karuna-Shechen’s Communications Director for two years and had the chance to travel abroad from her New York base to engage with program stakeholders.

“One program we ran actually trained grandmothers to be solar engineers!” says Cuff.

Karuna-Shechen worked with the community to select female volunteers who could be trained to become solar technicians at India’s Barefoot College or at their facilities in Kathmandu. The women would return to install and manage solar lighting systems in their villages. Access to light allowed children to study once the sun set, encouraged more social activities, and transformed life in villages.

Cuff lived in New York for six years, moving there with her husband, Yana Kehrlein, a documentary filmmaker who was attending graduate school at Columbia University. While in New York, Cuff also worked as a freelance writer and was a writer-inresidence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

After living in the U.S., Cuff returned to B.C. and lived in Kimberley. She worked as Communications and Philanthropy Manager for six years at Wildsight, a charity that provides environmental education and initiates sustainable community initiatives through lobbying and mobilizing people to take action.

She worked on the Jumbo Wild campaign, which aimed to protect grizzly bear habitat in B.C.’s Purcell Mountain Range (Jumbo Valley) from being developed into a ski resort. After more than 20 years of lobbying, the Ktunaxa Nation, with support from the provincial and federal governments, declared the Qat’muk Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in early 2020, protecting the 700-square kilometre area in Jumbo Valley from development.

Cuff comes to UBC from College of the Rockies where she taught Scholarly Writing, and Advanced Professional Communications, at its main Cranbrook campus.

“LFS is all about transforming learning into meaningful change in the world. This is fundamental for me – our classrooms are a microcosm of the world and have the power to affect change beyond what we can imagine.”

For fun, Cuff plays a 100-year-old banjo and loves being outdoors. In Kimberley, she skied and tried to visit every swimming hole she could find, and now that she’s back in Vancouver, Cuff is taking advantage of swimming in the ocean at Locarno and Jericho beaches.

New Faculty Profile: Thorsten Knipfer

November 18, 2020

New Faculty Profile: Thorsten Knipfer

Thorsten Knipfer joined the Faculty’s Applied Biology program in September 2020 as an Assistant Professor in Plant Physiology. Originally from Bavaria, Germany, Knipfer completed his MSc at the University of Bayreuth, where he studied the water relations of roots in corn plants. He then
received his PhD from University College Dublin in Ireland, where he continued his work using micro-manipulation techniques to study the link between cell and root water relations and aquaporin activity.

“I was trying to understand how water travels through roots at the cellular level, where transport resistance may occur, and how this impacts whole-plant water movement” says Knipfer. “With this knowledge, we become aware of the plant’s ability to regulate water flow dynamics and how it can adapt to different soil moisture conditions.”

Knipfer was also a postdoctoral research associate with the Department of Viticulture & Enology at the University of California, Davis, where he continued his work on water relations, this time in grape vines. “I was looking closely at the xylem, which is the tissue that transports water and nutrients from the soil to the canopy,” says Knipfer. “Drought being a reoccurring feature of California’s climate, we wanted to test the resistance of various varieties of grape vines and better understand their water requirements.”

For the first time, Knipfer was able to use x-ray computed tomography to witness the formation of gas embolism under drought stress and elucidate the underlying repair mechanisms in the intact plant – a similar methodology used in medicine to look internally at bones.

“This work was conducted at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron facility in Berkeley. We essentially brought our garden into the facility, and used the machine to take more than 1000 images on a 180-degree rotation. We then created a 3-D visualization of the tissue anatomy of the plant, so we could see the network of xylem that water is flowing through and detect the weak points where air is entering the system. This provided a good understanding of plant anatomy in relation to plant function.”

Knipfer is confident that farmers utilize this information to make management practices more sustainable through water savings. “If we want to use less water without sacrificing yield, we need to understand the physiological processes of what is happening inside of a plant, and exactly how much water the plant needs to maintain those processes. Only then can we avoid over- or under-watering.”

Here at UBC, Knipfer’s research portfolio will fill in key gaps in plant physiology, with bridges to soil-plant-atmosphere interactions and genomics.

He has already begun collaborating with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on a project to investigate the poplar genus-types, using the synchrotron at the Canadian Light Source. He has also been in touch with B.C. hazelnut growers, helping them to screen hazelnut varieties to identify drought-resistant types.

“This field continuously fascinates me, as we are able to obtain an advanced understanding of drought stress responses in plants at both the micro- and microscopy level using a combination of cutting-edge and traditional research tools.”

Sowing Seeds for Future Generations

November 18, 2020

Sowing Seeds for Future Generations

Left to right: Iva Jankovic, Christina and Alan Eastwood, Rose Cameron

To Alan and Christina Eastwood, sustainable living goes beyond tending their own organic land and food, to extending support to LFS students facing new hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Eastwoods created an endowment to UBC in 2015, establishing two LFS awards for third-year and graduate students who have significant interest in food systems. This year, in light of the pandemic, they’ve increased available award funds.

“We think there will be more students in difficulty,” Alan explains, “so, the more we can add to the current year’s budget in our endowment, the better.” He wonders whether students may be facing a few difficult years ahead, and adds, “If anything, we would like other people who’ve got endowments to think of that, too.”

The Eastwoods live in North Saanich on Vancouver Island. They moved up island from Victoria to a three-acre spread when they were close to retirement, and they thrived there for 27 years, tending 30 fruit trees and an acre and a half of fully organic garden space.

“We were always busy in the garden!” says Alan, “it was our main time use.”

They moved to a smaller place three years ago, but still enjoy hours in the garden each day.

“It definitely fills my life,” says Christina, “and it’s life-giving, I would say. It’s a big hobby, and I love the fact that it promotes things like bees and bugs and wasps; all the critters that we need so desperately.”

Organic farming is what attracted them to UBC. “We’ve been to the UBC Farm two or three times now,” said Christina. “It promotes what we see as a very healthy and sort of far-reaching Faculty — I mean in their way of thinking, in looking after the soil, the organic nature of the food, and the furtherance of pollinators and birds.”

Organic growing and living sustainably with a small carbon footprint are deep commitments for the Eastwoods. While hereveryday outlook is optimistic, Christina’s long-range outlook is less so.

“I keep hearing these statistics on how many birds are disappearing, and how bees are disappearing. It’s like leaving a scorched earth behind us. And mostly it came from our generation.” Both Christina and Alan see their endowment as a tiny atonement as Alan adds: “We felt that by leaving an endowment to the next generation, maybe they can fix what we broke.”

In their garden this season, they’re seeing more hungry young deer reaching through their fences, and finding oddly beautiful lace-like designs carved in kale and chard by birds. Spending time cultivating in their garden keeps them both active says Christina.

As for the future, Alan says, “We just hope that students will benefit from our endowment, and we hope they’ll continue their interest in food systems.”

Getting into the Weeds

November 18, 2020

Getting into the Weeds

Jennifer Grenz (BSc Agroecology ’04, PhD Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems ‘20) wants her students take a closer look at the uninvited weeds in their gardens.

“I’m encouraging students to embrace a different definition of a weed, because every plant’s worth depends on the observer’s values and context,” she says. “Instead, let’s see a weed as something that you don’t want in a specific place.”

Grenz is a Sessional Lecturer in the Faculty, teaching APBI 328: Weed Science in the winter term. She was also a teaching assistant in the course during her graduate program. With the course being offered entirely online for the first time, Grenz took the opportunity to introduce a number of new changes this year.

“Previously, the course was very theoretical and classroom-based, focused on the weeds themselves. I wanted the students to get in the weeds and look outward. Weed science is very interconnected, and I believe it needs to address soil, plants, and people.”

In the course, students learn basic weed biology, integrated pest management, the impacts of climate change, and weed identification skills. The most fundamental change Grenz has introduced is a shift to a discussion approach and problem-based learning. “Weed science is all about problem solving and our students need an opportunity to develop and practice this skillset.”

“Students are working together on a collaborative weed mapping project. They are surveying their neighbourhoods for weeds, uploading images, identifying species, and measuring infestation sizes and density. We are creating a detailed map of weed presence in British Columbia, as well as some other countries where our students currently reside. This data will be shared with BC’s Provincial Invasive Plant Program for weed tracking purposes.”

And the pandemic hasn’t put a hamper on connecting students with people in the industry, as Grenz has embraced the use of virtual learning in the course. “I’ve invited farmers and ranchers to join the class directly from their fields, where they’ll walk around with a tablet and show students the issues they face with various weeds.” The students then form groups to tackle the farmer’s problem, and present their solutions. “In this way, students are already building connections with the industry while using problem-based learning to make changes in the real world.”

Grenz is a proud Nlaka’pamux woman whose family comes from the Lytton First Nation. As an Indigenous scientist, she is introducing decolonizing concepts into weed science. “Most people are taught that there are good plants and bad plants, or native species and invasive species,” she says.

“Instead, I try open discussion into plant potential and management through plant relationships. Many species that are considered a burden may in fact have some unrealized benefits. As we face a changing climate, and see issues such as herbicide resistance on the rise, we need our next generation of weed scientists to embrace relational thinking and be open to exploring new approaches.”

UBC Alum Harold Steves to Retire From Civic Politics

November 18, 2020

UBC Alum Harold Steves to Retire From Civic Politics

Photo provided by Harold Steves

At 83, Harold Steves (BSc Agriculture, 1963) will be retiring as Richmond’s longest-serving City Councillor. Using Twitter, Steves, who is known as ClimateChange Steves (@Harold_Steves), announced he would not seek re-election in 2022 after 50 years of service.

Even though he plans to step back from civic politics, he has more to accomplish; and agriculture and food are bred into his DNA.

As the man who founded B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve in the early 1970s, Steves stays connected to scientists around the world via Twitter. This allows him to stay current on his interests, which revolve around regenerative agriculture, the UN, and local and global food security policy.

“I stay motived because I know it can take decades to make changes,” says Steves. “Five percent of people can change the world; it can take a while.”

Passion projects in the works for Steves

Food security remains a top priority, especially as COVID-19 exposed vulnerabilities in our food production, processing and distribution systems. Steves will continue to work towards achieving 40% self-sufficiency in food production within Richmond. This involves moving two projects forward: collaborating with Kwantlen Polytechnic University to start the world’s first farm school in Richmond; and setting up a land bank, enabling young people to access land via leases where they can establish farms.

Steves also has two more years on the Metro Vancouver Regional District Board. He hopes to dust off a plan that is currently “sitting on a shelf” that calls for preserving 240 hectares of Colony Farm in Coquitlam as an agricultural- and nature-protected area, housing organic agriculture, berms and trees.

Also, Steves is developing new plant varieties. At his 103-year old home in Richmond, he developed a new yellow tomato, and is improving an early heirloom tomato, called Alpha, selected for its hardiness in colder, northern temperatures; he’s excited to see how the Alpha fares in northern Canada.

For the past 10 years, he’s worked on bringing back the purple Mikado tomato that is high in anti-oxidants. His ancestors grew the original Mikado back in 1888, but the plants had become crossed with other tomato breeds and lost their original leaves that resemble potato leaves.

He and his wife Kathy raise purebred Belted Galloway Cattle and cross them with Angus to produce grass-fed beef.

A family of agricultural pioneers

His great-uncle Herbert and grandfather Joseph Steves started a seed farm in 1888, becoming the first mail-order seed-sellers in Western Canada. They managed heritage seeds from 50-60 varieties of vegetables adapted to northern climates.

Steves’ other notable lineage goes back one more generation. His great-grandparents Manoah and Martha founded Steveston in 1877. Hailing from New Brunswick, they were the first to settle north of what’s now called Garry Point, and brought in B.C.’s first purebred Holstein cattle, which supplied milk to the City of Vancouver.

Steves learned the value of oral history from his family.

“My great aunt Ida told stories of my great grandfather who taught my grandfather and father down through the generations,” said Steves. “We are husbandmen of the land. What we take from it we must return to it. We must never destroy the land.”

His father studied Agriculture at UBC, as did two of Steves’ children. Three of his other children attended UBC, studying Astronomy, Engineering and Social Work.

Steves’ wife of 60 years, Kathy (who has a UBC degree in Physics), has played the role of both life partner and business partner.

“Kathy can pull up files from 30-40 years ago from a wall of filing cabinets that she keeps. It’s been the two of us together the whole time.”

Initiating B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR)

While a student at UBC, a classmate urged Steves to join the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, precursor to the New Democratic Party) as both were upset by land rezoning in Richmond, which had negatively impacted their families’ farms. Steves became involved in the CCF during 1960s.

Steves’ father ran a dairy but like many farmers, he was unaware Richmond Council rezoned their farmland for residential use in the late 1950s. When his father wanted to expand his dairy farm so that he could install a bulk tank, he was forbidden to do so. After further setbacks, Harold and his father went out of the milk business and switched to beef cattle.

The younger Steves set up an Agriculture Committee under the NDP made up of young farmers, and he met with farmers in Richmond, all the way east to Abbotsford. Using a land bank model from Saskatchewan, he started to write up an Agricultural Land Bank system for B.C.

He drafted the agriculture policy for the NDP in the 1972 election, establishing a land-use zoning for agricultural production, which would protect these designated areas from being subdivided for industrial and residential use. This policy eventually became what is known as the Agricultural Land Reserve in 1973 under an NDP government.

“Since it launched in 1973, the ALR has had one battle after another to keep it together,” quips Steves. “But it’s mostly stayed together.”

The ALR has protected B.C.’s agricultural land, and while its mandate and scope have been reviewed several times over the years, it has served as a model for ensuring food security for the province.

Steves says he’s been contacted by the United Nations Habitat for Humanity in the early days of the ALR rollout, as well as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. They were concerned that urban dwellers may not be able to feed themselves in the face of climate change and wanted to understand how B.C.’s ALR was set-up.

Community involvement

Steves has made an indelible mark in Richmond and in agricultural policy.

He was elected from 1969-1973 as a Richmond alderman, and then served continuously as a councillor since 1977, only taking a break from civic duties to serve as an NDP MLA from 1973-1977.

In addition, he’s chaired the Metro Vancouver Agriculture Committee and currently serves on its Regional District Board of Directors; he co-founded the Richmond Anti-Pollution Association in the 1960s; and he’s protected overfishing by helping to set fishing quotas as a director of the BC Groundfish Development Authority; and, he joined demonstrations to save UBC Farm from development.

“There are many ways to get your message across. One way involves joining protests, and the other way is showing people how to do things. I do both.”

Milestones

November 18, 2020

Milestones

New Dietetics Crowd Fundraiser

UBC Dietetics students often need to travel to rural, remote or Indigenous communities during their practicum. To help them, the Faculty has established the Dietetics Rural and Indigenous Communities Placement Fund to support students with these additional costs. Learn more and support Dietetics students here: crowdfundraising.ubc.ca/projects/lfs-dietetics-student-support

Toddler Development Researcher Wins Award

Larissa Rossen, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, was awarded the prestigious MSFHR (Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Research) Research Trainee Award. Rossen is the principal investigator in the Away We Grow Toddler Development Study that looks at toddler feeding patterns, nutrient status, and neuro-cognitive development at UBC and BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Her supervisor is Associate Professor Yvonne Lamers.

New Dietary App Receives Research Funding

Tamara Cohen

An Insight Development Grant has been awarded to Assistant Professor Tamara Cohen from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). This funds her project to develop a self-monitoring app to assess an individual’s dietary behaviour according to the new Canada Food Guide. Cohen is also Director of the Dietetics program.

President’s Staff Award To Roxana Quinde

Roxana Quinde received a UBC President’s Staff Award for Community Engagement. Quinde has worked in LFS for 20 years, and she is the Coordinator for Global Partnerships and Coordinator for the Global Resource Systems program. She was recognized for fostering global links to universities and organizations in order to expand opportunities for student exchanges, and for being a strong community builder on campus.

UBC’s 25-Year Club

Staff members Nelson Dinn and Wayne Tamagi were inducted into UBC’s 25 Year Club. Dinn is the Business Operations Manager at UBC Dairy Education & Research Centre based in Agassiz, B.C., and Tamagi is Systems Analyst at the LFS Learning Centre.

In addition, faculty member Christine Scaman was inducted into the 25 Year Club. Scaman is an Associate Professor and Program Director in Food, Nutrition and Health. She specializes in food chemistry, specifically investigating carbohydrates and enzymology.

CFI Funding to Outfit Research Labs

Three researchers received funding from the Government of Canada, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the John R. Evans Leaders Fund: Assistant Professor Derek Dee received $125,000 for his project, Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy to Study Food Proteins and Enzymes; Assistant Professor Alexandra Protopopova received $125,300 for her project, Laboratory for Human-animal Interaction and Companion Animal Welfare; and Associate Professor Risa Sargent received $123,454 for her project, Plant-pollinator and Global Change Lab.

LFS Mentorship is 20 Years Old

This year, our mentorship program hits a 20-year milestone! A huge thank you to our hundreds of alumni and supporters who have provided guidance for our students over the past two decades. LFS has one of the largest mentorship programs at UBC – this year 118 mentors will be matched up with 312 undergraduate students (18% of our students!) – all virtually for the first time.

We welcome our returning mentors, plus 70 new mentors. LFS is a global community that thrives on connections; this year we have mentors in Cairo, Paris, Kathmandu and Hong Kong, to name just a few places our alumni live.

Supporting Students During COVID-19

November 18, 2020

Supporting Students During COVID-19

Some quick pivots took place in the summer as the university prepared for online teaching and learning.

Gail Hammond

Health and Wellness for All UBC Students

In May, UBC wanted to support students coming from an unusual COVID-19-impacted end to secondary school with the creation of three online courses aimed at helping students succeed in first year and beyond. These courses were later coined Academic Essentials – and focused on reading/writing, math and student wellness.

Gail Hammond, an Assistant Professor of Teaching in LFS, takes a deep interest in student well-being. She has been co-chair of the Teaching and Well-being Community of Practice that straddles UBCV and UBCO since 2018. Her CoP co-chair is Michael Lee, Associate Professor of Teaching in the Faculty of Medicine.

Hammond and Lee were joined by one other faculty and two staff members from both UBC campuses in preparing rich, online content. The team quickly mobilized to create one of the Academic Essentials courses called Live Well to Learn Well, which provides students with strategies for self-care, stress management and learning effectively.

“I had never created an entirely online course from the ground up, let alone in about six weeks,” says Hammond. “But we had an incredible team and, when all was said and done, over 2,000 incoming students registered in the course. The post-course analytics show students were deeply engaged in the activities and appreciative of the opportunity to build community before stepping over the threshold of starting their all-virtual first classes in September.”

The two other Academic Essentials courses are Reading and Writing at University and Readiness for University Mathematics. Overall, one-third of UBC’s incoming students enrolled in Academic Essentials, and UBC sees great value in using these free, online bridging courses in the future.

Transition for New LFS Students

LFS Student Services wanted to create a transition program for new-to-LFS undergraduate students and received backing from the UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund in early 2020; the group planned to develop and launch the program in September 2021. Due to COVID, the team moved up their timeline aggressively, launching 15 months early to support more than 500 incoming students.

Using the UBC Canvas platform, ROOTSS (Reach Out, Orientation, Transition and Study Skills), is an online and interactive program that helps students adjust to UBC and introduces them to the LFS community. During the summer, ROOTSS launched weekly content, affectionately called ‘Module Mondays’, leading up to the start of classes. These modules highlighted registration and student resources, academic tips, career planning advice, and enabled engagement between LFS students, faculty and staff, via videos, webinars, and discussion boards.

The ROOTSS Canvas content averaged close to 1,500 page views a day, and students reported a high level of engagement and benefit from participating. The Student Services team is currently assessing the success of this early launch and using lessons learned to develop ROOTSS 2021.

Master of Food and Resource Economics (MFRE) students in class

New Studio, Flexibility are Keys to Teaching in Professional Program

Flexibility and being prepared for any situation – face-to-face teaching or 100% online teaching – has been important for instructors in the Master of Food and Resource Economics (MFRE) program, says Director Kelleen Wiseman.

“If things get better we’re prepared to move fully face-to-face and if things get worse, we’ll reduce our face-to-face teaching. Whatever happens we’re are doing it at the highest quality.”

The program is being taught using a hyflex model – a mix of online and in-person teaching.

The MFRE team hatched the idea of developing a studio to improve online course delivery and allow instructors to focus on content rather than managing technology. They converted a room in MacMillan into a professional-level recording studio, drawing upon audio visual expertise from Sauder, the LFS Learning Centre and UBC Learning Spaces. UBC AV also helped test the sound, and suggested methods to reduce echoes, such as adding wall padding and additional rugs.

Important to the studio development was the hiring of Natalya Lebedeva, MFRE Production Coordinator, who transformed the space by purchasing, setting up, testing, and optimizing equipment to accommodate both live stream and prerecorded lectures for Food and Resource Economics professors. The studio now includes a ‘confidence’ screen where instructors can see what the students see, a drawing tablet, gallery and instructor screens, as well as high-quality cameras and microphones.

Two-thirds of the 35 students in this one-year professional program are international, and all made the decision to move to Vancouver to experience the MFRE program. So, in addition to the online component, Wiseman and instructors Rick Barichello and Jim Vercammen are teaching in-person to provide a personal experience.

Working with Steven Lee and Jodi Scott, UBC Facilities Planning, MFRE booked a spacious, well-designed classroom that allows their students to safely maintain physical distance and follow all COVID protocols. The MFRE cohort is divided into two groups and all three instructors deliver their inperson classes twice. Students are happy and adapting well to this unique and productive setting.

A Message from the Dean

November 18, 2020

A Message from the Dean

Rickey Yada

Thank you for taking a break and browsing through the fall issue of ReachOut magazine.

Like everywhere else, at UBC we are working through unusual times in COVID-19. We’ve had to investigate ways to deliver the quality teaching and research we are renowned for; it’s brought many challenges, but I never cease to be amazed by the way our faculty and staff have stepped up to support our students.

You can read about how we transitioned very quickly to delivering online support for our newest students at UBC and LFS. Also, how we created a new, hyflex learning model in one of our professional master’s programs. In addition, I want to thank Alan and Christina Eastwood, LFS donors who have stepped up to provide extra student support during these times.

With challenges come opportunities. The need to build resiliency in our food system is on the radar of many people. You can read about how Sean Smukler has been tackling food resiliency starting at the farm level, and what he says lies ahead to address this issue from a multi-stakeholder lens that involves policy makers and consumers, in addition to farmers.

Speaking of farmers, I’m very excited for the launch of a new technology called LiteFarm, developed with a great deal of input from ecologically-minded farmers. LiteFarm just launched and has the potential to improve the income and welfare of small-farm holders and the sustainability of food systems.

We also highlight people in our community – alumni and longest-serving Richmond City Councillor Harold Steves, who announced this year he will not run again in 2022; our three newest LFS faculty members; and, we talk to the new directors of UBC’s Wine Research Centre.

Stay safe and I hope you enjoy this issue!

Sincerely,

Rickey Yada

Dean and Professor, Faculty of Land and Food Systems

Building a Resilient Food System Starts with the Soil