BERKELEY, Calif.—UC Berkeley is often ahead of the pack to champion innovations that promote sustainability. It now seems that the next opportunity for the university to become involved with progressive change is coming soon. As announced by Alice Waters in UC Berkeley’s Edible Education 101, UC President Janet Napolitano and the chancellors of every UC campus have committed to undertake a plan to better the food systems UC-wide.
Known as the UC Food Initiative, the plan will likely expand research, outreach and curriculum in regard to the food system. Alice Waters is a local restaurant owner and creator of Edible Schoolyard in MLK Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. Waters announced that she had a meeting with Napolitano and the campus chancellors at her restaurant Chez Panisse on Jan. 6. In the class, Waters quoted Napolitano, who said, “I want to integrate … all of the ways that food and agriculture will be taught.”