A team of students and faculty from the Huntley College of Agriculture and the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies was selected as one of the winners in a regional contest in how to make Los Angeles County communities more sustainable.
The team presented “Food Within Reach” at the Pando Days event. This was the culmination of a year-long process which invited 10 Southern California colleges to submit proposals that focused on a different goal of the county’s sustainability plan.
“Food Within Reach” aims to improve urban access to affordable, locally-grown, healthy foods by facilitating “foodways” every quarter-mile across the county — public spaces or accessible private land where food can be grown and prepared by the local community. “Food Within Reach” built upon existing urban agriculture projects at Cal Poly Pomona, including the Horse Hill Microfarm, the urban agriculture greenhouse and aquaponics system, and the agroecology program at the Lyle Center, which is beginning to work with the campus food pantry.
The Cal Poly Pomona team was one of four selected as winners, along with Caltech, Pasadena City College, and SCI-Arc. Other universities that competed included USC, UCLA, Woodbury University, LA Trade Tech College, Cal State Long Beach, and Otis College of Art and Design.