Student-Run Food Co-op, It’s Gonna Be Big!

A revolution’s brewing! A group of students at UC Davis are in the process of laying a foundation for a student-run food cooperative on campus. The students will be aided by the organization CoFED (Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive) in their food co-op endeavors. Enosh Baker, the Northern California Regional Director for CoFED, is working closely with the student group to make the student-run food co-op a reality.

You may well be asking yourself, what exactly is a student-run food cooperative? It will be a café of sorts. Most of the labor: cooking, waiting, cleaning etc. will be provided by volunteer students, and as much of the food as possible will come from  farms in and around Davis.

The café will be a break-even operation, not a for-profit organization, so it can meet the goal of making cheap, local, nutritious food available to students. In addition, the decisions will be made through a consensus-based process, all parties involved will be a part of the decision-making.

CoFED, the sponsoring organization, aids students trying to start student-run food cooperatives across the country. Currently there are CoFED-sponsored student groups organizing co-ops at Cal Poly SLO, City College San Francisco, Humboldt State, UC Santa Barbara, and University of Washington, according to their website.

The CoFED program thinks that student organizations should not have to start from scratch when they want to start something like a student-run food cooperative, so it offers students a way to see how other student groups across the nation have gone about creating such organizations. CoFED is a great tool for students who want to start food movements on their campuses.

The students leading the movement at UC Davis are hoping to bring more awareness to the community about where their food comes from, and that food can simultaneously be delicious and healthy. UC Davis is an agriculture school, yet many students have no idea where their food comes from and the implications of that. For example, only 23% of the food in the UC Davis Dining Commons is considered local.

The UC Davis campus is in the heart of an agricultural paradise and not even a fourth of the food served on campus is local. The student-run food co-op wants to change this, and educate students about why it is important to eat local. One of the student leaders behind the food co-op said, “There’s an ethic behind this food”. The students creating the food co-op are also hoping to empower students, to show them that they are strong and they do have a say in how things are run.

If you are interested in getting involved with the student-run food cooperative movement on UC Davis campus, contact me at snlewis@ucdavis.edu and I will let you know when our next meeting will be. This is an exciting opportunity to get involved on our campus and make a positive impact!