Arizona organic baby greens at TLC Vegetable Farm

Just off the 101 Freeway on the outskirts of sunny Scottsdale, Arizona sits TLC Vegetable Farm, an organic baby greens operation housed in the heart of the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community. On a chilly, overcast morning in December 2019, The ASU Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership cohort visited TLC Vegetable Farms in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Opened in 2016, Senae Thai Bistro in Tucson is owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Amonwadee “Dee” and Jim Buizer. The restaurant name, Senae, which translates to “charming” in Thai, is also a combination of the couple’s children’s names, Danae and Sean.

This past December, I had the opportunity to fly across the country and join my classmates in Arizona for a Food and Farm Immersion course as part of ASU’s food policy and sustainability leadership program. On the second day of our trip, we visited the United Food Bank in Mesa, AZ, which stood out as pretty different from our other stops. There were no dairy cows, farm tractors, or acres of leafy greens. Instead, we arrived to a clean, spacious warehouse full of wooden palettes, cardboard boxes, colorful food packages, and smiling volunteers.

The leafy green city of Yuma, AZ was a sight to see and provided so much information about agriculture practices in southern Arizona. The ASU Food Policy and Sustainability cohort was given the honor to have a panel discussion with four amazing individuals who work for the USDA in different capacities.

Today a letter was sent to government leaders charged with developing the next iteration of the DGAs – Dietary Guidelines for Americans, an activity undertaken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services every five years. I am a signatory on this letter and believe that it is past time for sustainability criteria to be integrated into dietary guidance. I will let the letter speak for itself.

Indigenous foods within the United States are rich in diversity. From taro root in Hawaii to the salmon of the Pacific Northwest, from wild rice of the Great Lakes Region to buffalo of the plains, Indigenous people are continuing their food cultures and working for the benefit of future generations.

Situated about 30 minutes from downtown Phoenix, Arizona sits the 35-acre Blue Sky Organic Farm. As the ASU Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership cohort approaches the main farm house, we are welcomed by a handful of happy goats. We continue through a cluster of citrus trees and meet Sara Dolan.

Arizona is not known for bagels, but one of the best I’ve had can be found on the plains bordering Phoenix.

At the end of a long day of garden tours, the ASU Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership cohort gathered in the courtyard of Manzo Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona to learn about the school garden program at Tucson Unified School District.

Just a short drive outside Phoenix, in Mesa, Arizona, is the Hatley family farm. Now known as Associated Farms, Adam Hatley and his family have been farming this land since 1976, when Adam’s father first started cultivating the land here.

On Wednesday December 4th, a couple students and professors of the Food and Farm Immersion branched off during the morning and early afternoon to table at the newly opened Whole Foods Market in downtown Tempe, Arizona.

They say, “good fences, make good neighbors,” and while that may be true, I can say for certain that in Wilcox, Arizona, “good neighbors, make good fences” and other good choices that support sustainability. Nowhere is this more evident than at the C Bar Ranch where Tina Thompson and her family are hard at work raising angus beef cattle.