Learning a matter for life say graduates

Friends' futures in good earth


by Bruce Mason
Staff writer

Adriele Hawes and Christina Custer were raised in the big city but say that Agricultural Sciences 300 and Soil Science 433 were their favourite courses on the way to earning bachelor's degrees in Agricultural Sciences.

The first, AgSci 300, was a field trip to farms around the province. Both say the second course is what it's all about.

"Human beings have lost touch with the very thing that is vital to survival -- where food comes from," says Hawes. "Soil is essential, complex and fascinating. We need to learn much more about it."

At Churchill High School in Vancouver where the two met in Grade 8, their Geography teacher told them that too many people think farmers are uneducated, says Custer.

"She taught her students that farmers deserve the highest respect for knowing so much about soil, as well as horticulture, business, marketing, irrigation, and more," she says.

"It isn't taught in basic high school science, so it's common for students to shout `Gee Whiz!' when they start studying and thinking about soil," says Soil Science Assoc. Prof. Art Bomke.

Hawes, who has a lifelong love of the outdoors and a mother who is an avid backpacker, was raised in a family that planted and harvested fruit in their Vancouver garden.

Custer grew up listening to her grandmother's first-hand accounts of life on a farm in her native Germany.

Their studies took them far from campus. Hawes spent a year in the Philippines, studying Third World subsistence agriculture and "learned more about rice than I will ever need." Custer went to Sweden to study European farming first hand.

As well, they completed a summer internship at an organic fruit orchard in B.C.'s Similkameen Valley.

"We picked a ton of cherries, weeded a lot of ginseng, and took part in slaughtering chickens - something everyone should do once in their life to establish contact and respect for live animals and other sources of food," says Custer.

The two graduates don't consider themselves environmental activists, but advocates for education and awareness about ecological approaches to living, especially around agriculture and food production.

"In response to the needs of students and to society our Faculty is being transformed," says Dean of Agricultural Sciences Moura Quayle. "We have identified four program areas which focus on ecosystem, community and human health in a way that broadly addresses the route to a healthy planet, which is a major concern for so many people."

Hawes chose Agroecology, which includes animal studies, horticulture, resource economics, soils and environment. Custer selected Global Resource Systems, in which students focus on resource specialization within a region of the world.

Another new program is Community and Environment, which features landscape architecture and home economics. The fourth program, Food, Nutrition and Health concentrates on dietetics, food science, food marketing management and nutritional sciences.

Custer is working this summer as a plant health consultant for a private company in Kelowna. Hawes has been hired as a research assistant in Bomke's soil lab.

"Studying at UBC brought us to a better understanding of how to care for the land," Hawes says.

"The Faculty of Agricultural Sciences offers a great deal to anyone who wants to improve global ecology," Custer adds.