What is Farms to Fishes?

Farms to Fishes: Understanding Watershed Health through Food and Community is a project of Wild Farm Alliance made possible by a grant from NOAA's Bay-Watershed Education and Training (or B-WET) Program. Through collaboration with a variety of educational partners, we endeavored to provide local students with "meaningful watershed experiences" over the course of the 2010/2011 school year (i.e. getting kids outside and doing our best to make sure they learn a lot and have a great time.) The goal was to educate students about a frequently skipped yet significant topic: the role of agriculture and citizen activity in the health of watersheds and marine ecosystems.

Classroom sessions and field trips that focused on agriculture, natural areas, and the impact of urban activities on ocean health helped students examine the connections between food grown on the land and the fish we eat. These tangible examples illustrate why protecting watersheds and conserving marine resources matters. Our hope is that an increasing familiarity with natural places will leave a lasting impact on the upcoming generation and the adults directly involved in their education, inspiring them to care for the environment in which they live.

The Beginning of the Watershed Story

Watersheds are often defined using bathtub terminology: the rim of the tub represents the highest ridges of an area, and the water flowing down its sides emblematic of waterways following gravity’s mandate and eventually reaching the “drain.” But this analogy can only go so far. If you truly want to learn about a watershed, go out and see one. And if you want to become a steward of your watershed, spend time exploring the one that you call home.

To introduce students to the Pajaro Watershed, we began in a wild area near the top of Eureka Canyon called Grizzly Flat. Outside temperatures dipped under the cooling influence of riparian vegetation and rushing water as our vehicles climbed the narrow road running parallel to Corralitos Creek. Then we walked a forested trail that led to the small, cool stream. After some exploring, students came across local residents, including newts, salamanders, and frogs. Stretching a kick net across the water revealed an abundance of aquatic invertebrates, including stoneflies, mayflies, caddis flies, and worms. Water quality tests informed us that this stream was cold, oxygen rich, and low in nitrates and phosphates—in other words, ideal for supporting a wide diversity of aquatic life. 

We chose to begin our program in this beautiful location partly because it fits nicely into a logical framework, but mostly because we hope to combat the eco-fatigue that plagues so many students. While an important component of Farms to Fishes is to investigate the threats watersheds face, we wanted to ensure that students first establish a positive connection with their environment before diving into what’s wrong with the picture. Many young people have had limited opportunity to develop a relationship with the natural world, and we believe that they need a concrete sense of what they are trying to save in order to build a strong foundation on which to build a conservation ethic. 

Measuring Impacts Downstream

Having visited a fairly pristine site in the upper Pajaro Watershed, our next creek visit took us farther downstream to a spot where Corralitos Creek passes near the city of Watsonville, California and merges with Salsipuedes Creek. Located near a busy road and several businesses, this waterway showed signs of degradation, with litter strewn along its banks and caught in the branches of overhanging vegetation. But appearances can deceive, so students practiced water quality tests to gain a fuller picture of the stream's health.

Having studied the relationship between temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) in preparation for the field trip, students practiced measuring DO levels to determine if this stream could support a healthy diversity of aquatic life. They also tested the levels of nitrates and phosphates to evaluate the impacts of agricultural and domestic activities occurring in the area. We found oxygen levels sufficient to support common aquatic invertebrates and fish. The presence of low levels of phosphates told us that local runoff might be a potential problem for this stream. We did not detect nitrates, but we did discuss the possible role of seasonality. In winter, farmers are generally applying fewer nutrients to their fields; our test results might turn out different if we took samples at other times of the year.

Farming for Healthy Watersheds

A primary aim of Farms to Fishes is to show students how food production impacts the surrounding watershed. Classroom discussions cover the issues of water quality, soil erosion, biodiversity conservation, and use of chemical inputs (i.e., fertilizers and pesticides). This paints the big picture of how farmers’ decisions can aid or challenge the cause of conservation. But that picture comes to life when students visit an actual farm.

Students from Santa Cruz Montessori, Renaissance High, EA Hall Middle School, and Watsonville High had the pleasure of spending time at Live Earth Farm, a beautiful, diverse, sustainably managed farm in Santa Cruz County, California. Growing a stunning array of delicious, high-quality organic fruit and vegetables, the farm managers’ understanding of organic extends beyond avoiding synthetic chemicals. In conjunction with Wild Farm Alliance, they have recently installed a number of conservation plantings as part of an ongoing effort to incorporate elements of the wild into their farm.

While there, no one’s hands stayed clean. Students worked hard planting native shrubs and trees along the edges of crop fields, which will grow into tall hedgerows, offering food and shelter to beneficial insects that will help pollinate crops and keep pest populations in check.

Students also visited another local farm where practices are carefully planned to meet priorities of both food production and conservation. Triple M Ranch, a training and education farm of the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (or ALBA) is located next door to Elkhorn Slough, an exceptional ecosystem on the central California coast that provides a key linkage between land and sea. The slough harbors California’s largest tract of tidal salt marsh outside San Francisco Bay and is a focal point of conservation efforts in the region. Students got to meet one of the farmers and hear firsthand about his land stewardship practices. They also got to taste the sweet strawberries growing in his field!

Cultivating a Sense of Place

Between video games, soccer practice, demanding parental workloads, and school budget cuts, kids are spending fewer and fewer hours exploring the great outdoors. In a number of districts, field trips have become a relic of the past. Without parents or teachers to take the lead in introducing children to the local wonders of the natural world, many children are growing up sadly unaware of the place they call home.

Richard Louv coined a new psychological term in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. In this work, he states that "an environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world." Prominent figures in place-based education thinking like Louv, David Sobel, and David Orr lay out a strong case for the need to rekindle young people's sense of "biophilia," the term world-renowned naturalist E.O. Wilson used to describe humanity's natural affinity for the vast array of earth's diversity, upon which our own existence depends. This requires hands-on, minds-on experiences that evoke a child's sense of wonder.

Farms to Fishes affords students opportunities to connect with the natural world and learn more about their unique local ecosystems. On the Central Coast of California, finding beautiful interesting places to visit is an easy task. By opening the door to their native inquisitiveness, we hope to plant seeds of understanding that will eventually germinate into an environmental stewardship ethic.

Elkhorn Slough is one of those places. Harboring California’s largest tract of tidal salt marsh outside San Francisco Bay, its habitats encompass extraordinary biological diversity, providing critical habitat for more than 135 aquatic bird, 550 marine invertebrate, and 102 fish species. The Elkhorn Slough is also home for sea lions, harbor seals, and California sea otters. More than 200 different bird species use the slough as a resting spot during their annual migration. (see Elkhorn's website for more information) Students visited the Slough to practice their skills as naturalists, observing wildlife and enjoying a local biodiversity hotspot. While there, we saw red-tailed hawks, egrets, cormorants, Canadian geese, leopard sharks, and garter snakes.

Where the River Meets the Sea

The simplest definition of an estuary is the place where salt and fresh water mix, typically at the mouth of a river. These transition zones between riverine and marine environments are among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Many ocean-going fish species spend their youth in estuaries, enjoying protection from large predators and an abundance of nutrients from the inflow of both freshwater and seawater.

They are popular with humans as well. Currently about 60% of the world's population lives along estuaries and the coast. Consequently, they are also subject to degradation from sedimentation, pollutants present in agricultural, domestic, and industrial runoff, and eutrophication due to nutrient overload.

Students visited the mouth of the Pajaro River to see where their watershed ends and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary begins. We pulled out our water quality kits again and tested for dissolved oxygen, nitrates, and phosphates.

Compared to test results from Grizzly Flat (upper watershed) and the junction of Corralitos and Salsipuedes Creeks (lower watershed), oxygen levels were lower and both nitrate and phosphate levels were higher. Students hypothesized that the cumulative impact of agricultural practices in the region is negatively affecting the quality of the Pajaro River.

This estuary is also home to a population of Western Snowy Plovers, a threatened shorebird that nests on the beach.

Partnerships

Farms to Fishes was built on a network of students, teachers, volunteers, and farm educators. We worked regularly with students from Santa Cruz Montessori’s Junior High program (Wavecrest), EA Hall Middle School, Renaissance High, and Watsonville High. Collaboration with the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program extended the limits of possibilities by allowing us to get our hands dirty at a diverse, sustainable farm and take an active role in stewardship. An ongoing partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Student Oceanography Club and WATCH (Watsonville Area Teens Conserving Habitat) programs afforded further opportunity to work with students from all over the Central Coast.