Sean Smukler to be new CSFS Director
By melanie kuxdorf on October 14, 2022
Announcing our new Director
Dr. Sean Smukler at the UBC Farm
A message from Dean Rickey Yada
October, 2022
I am pleased to announce that Sean Smukler will become the new Director of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm, effective January 1, 2023.
Many of you are familiar with Sean who is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and the Associate Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. In addition, he serves on the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food’s 17-member Advisory group for Regenerative Agriculture and Agritech (RAA), and holds the Chair, Agriculture and the Environment.
Sean is excited to start in this position and is well-versed on the research, teaching and outreach activities of the CSFS, as he’s been involved as a CSFS Associate member since joining UBC in 2012.
In the meantime, Sean will be reaching out to the CSFS Associates and management team as he prepares for his new role.
It’s been a pleasure for me to work closely with the CSFS and UBC Farm management team over the past year and a half as interim Director. I am certain Sean will position the CSFS for even greater success in the future.
Sincerely,
Rickey Yada
Dean, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
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By juliana cao on October 5, 2022
Watch out for the quiet ones – The smartest raccoons are the most docile
Raccoon caught by a camera trap (Hannah Griebling)
October 3, 2022
A study investigating animal personalities and how they help critters adapt to human environments has come to a curious conclusion.
Dr. Sarah Benson-Amram, Departments of Zoology and Forest and Conservation Sciences, was part of the team that studied raccoons’ personality and how it related to their ability to solve puzzles.
Dr. Benson-Amram leads the Urban Raccoon Project at the UBC Farm.
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By juliana cao on October 5, 2022
‘It was obviously shocking in the best way possible’: Patagonia pledges profits to the Earth
Zac Elik, manager of Patagonia’s Vancouver store (Marc Fawcett-Atkinson/National Observer)
October 3, 2022
Dr. Kai Chan, CSFS Associate and professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Institute for Oceans and Fisheries, commented on the donation of Patagonia to an environmental non-profit, including similar actions in the company’s history.
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By juliana cao on October 5, 2022
The fate of your food rests with Canada’s native bees
Jennifer Lipka catching bees at the UBC Farm (Jesse Winter/National Observer)
October 3, 2022
Jennifer Lipka, an MSc student in CSFS Associate Juli Carrillo’s lab and the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, discussed her research into how native bees are impacted by changes in land use, climate change and pollution.
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By juliana cao on October 5, 2022
This farmer-turned-biologist wants to put Quebec’s truffles on the culinary map
(Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail)
October 3, 2022
Shannon Berch, associate member in the Department of Botany, discussed growing truffles at the UBC Farm.
Berch leads the Truffle Establishment in British Columbia, a project at the Farm which focuses on farming Mediterranean black winter truffles in a symbiotic relationship with English oak trees.
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By juliana cao on October 5, 2022
The flower industry has a thorny environmental problem — and plastic is just part of it
(Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images)
October 3, 2022
Dr. Kai Chan, CSFS Associate and professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, discussed the environmental impacts of the industrial farming of flowers.
“Depending on where the flowers come from, there’s industrial farming and the effects of pesticides, fertilizers or water-hungry greenhouses to consider,” said Dr. Chan.
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By juliana cao on September 21, 2022
How a Garbage-Bin War Schools Humans and Birds
Sulfur-crested cockatoos enjoying a feast in Sydney, Australia (Ken Griffiths/Alamy)
September 21, 2022
Sulfur-crested cockatoos are trash-can bandits in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Humans use tools to protect their bins, and the birds then go the extra mile to break in.
The human-bird innovation arms race is “a really exciting idea,” says Dr. Sarah Benson-Amram, Departments of Forest and Conservation Sciences and Zoology. “It’s really wonderful to see data showing that likely this is what’s happening.”
Dr. Benson-Amram leads the Urban Raccoon Project at the UBC Farm.
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By juliana cao on September 16, 2022
Food Insecurity Affects Nearly 1 in 6 Canadian Households
September 16, 2022
“We know that food insecurity takes a major toll on people’s physical and mental well-being and adds significant costs to our healthcare system,” says Dr. Jennifer Black, CSFS Associate and Associate Professor of Food, Nutrition, and Health.
In her recent research, Dr. Black found that Canadians who had concerns about not being able to meet their food needs during the pandemic were also more likely to report serious mental health challenges.
Read the full article at Medscape.
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By juliana cao on September 8, 2022
B.C. researchers tout promising progress on oral insulin tablets
UBC researcher Yigong Guo holds an oral insulin tablet that is currently being tested (UBC/Karen Lee)
September 8, 2022
Researchers led by CSFS Associate Dr. Anubhav Pratap-Singh have developed oral insulin tablets as a replacement for daily insulin injections.
“These exciting results show that we are on the right track in developing an insulin formulation that will no longer need to be injected before every meal, improving the quality of life, as well as mental health, of more than nine million Type 1 diabetics around the world,” Pratap-Singh comments.
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By juliana cao on September 1, 2022
Lawns gone wild: How being lawnmower lazy boosts biodiversity
September 1, 2022
“We need to think more about resource use and the stuff we put on the ground, and think more about biodiversity. We’ve lost many, many of our pollinators because of that obsession with the bowling green type lawn.”
Forestry professor and CSFS Associate Dr. Terry Sunderland gave comments on the benefits of mowing the lawn less frequently.
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