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UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
Sustainable Agriculture Newsletter
Summer 2002 (v14n2)

SAREP News
SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE gets a new look

You may have noticed that Sustainable Agriculture, now in its 14th year, looks different. We thought it was time to refresh our newsletter and reflect the design sensibilities of the 21st century. Thanks to Missy Anapolsky at Circle Design in Sacramento for the new design. We’ve added a new section, Program Notes, to update our readers on some of the activities of SAREP staff, and moved the From the Director column to the inside. The role of the newsletter has always been to help SAREP accomplish its mission-based goals, which are:

  • To assist California farmers and ranchers in developing and implementing sustainable production and marketing systems, and
  • To support California’s rural and urban communities in understanding the concept and value of sustainable agriculture, and in participating in sustainable food and agricultural systems.

Over the years, the newsletter has been an important vehicle for getting information on farming practices out to farmers and farm advisors, presenting some aspects of sustainable agriculture philosophy and implementation in From the Director, reporting on legislation and trends, and alerting readers to resources, sources of funding, and events. The newsletter’s audience is farmers and ranchers, farm advisors, researchers, independent consultants, commodity groups, non-profit organizations, consumers, elected officials, University administrators, USDA and California Department of Food and Agriculture personnel, and other public agencies. We have surveyed our readers over the years, most recently in the Fall 2001 issue (Vol. 13, No. 3). The informal survey revealed some useful information: 52 percent of those responding reported that they have changed their farming practices as a result of newsletter information.

U.S. readers have always been able to receive free subscriptions to the printed newsletter. Since 1996, they and readers all over the world have also been able to access it on the Web at http://sarep.ucdavis.edu/newsltr/. The current newsletter mailing list includes more than 3,000 names. A small number of readers have chosen the option of receiving an electronic version of the newsletter via email. We ask for a $10 per year donation from foreign readers to cover mailing costs.

We hope we are still delivering the information you need. Thanks for your interest and support; we hope you like the new design!—Lyra Halprin, managing editor