May 13, 2025 • 6:00pm
YouTube: https://youtu.be/cygl7felMPk
| Prior to the arrival of European settlers in the desert Southwest, native tribes had farmed the land for centuries. European methods, and the sheer number of their population, led to sometimes devastating effects on the land, but now, new ideas in urban gardens and farming have emerged and may play an important role in our future sustainability. Join us for our next Sustainability Spotlight program, Urban Agriculture & Tucson’s Local Food Scene, presenting a panel discussion with three experts in the field, Tuesday, May 13, 6:00-7:30 pm. The program will highlight some of the options for producing healthy, delicious, hyper-local food in Tucson. Our panel will share the joys and the challenges of growing food in the desert, including a consideration of impacts from the changing climate and what we can expect for Tucson’s local food future. |
| Our Panelists: Lorien Tersey is the founder and proprietor of Dreamflower Garden, a lovely midtown half-acre overflowing with flowers and all manner of native and edible plants, enough to provide 40% of her diet. She is a frequent vendor of produce and locally adapted plant starts at the Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market. Lorien has encyclopedic knowledge of trees, native plants, and produce that can thrive in our Sonoran Desert setting, all grown organically. |
Dominika Heusinkveld writes occasional articles on nature and gardening for the Arizona Daily Star, and produces the Tucson Garden Guide, a biweekly email newsletter. Her focus is on native plants and creating urban habitat for wildlife. She also works part-time at
Strategic Habitat Enhancements, a local, woman-owned small business focusing on landscaping design with native plants. Dominika is a former Family Medicine physician with extensive experience serving underserved populations, with a special interest in the intersection between public health, individual health, and ecological health.
Erik Stanford, founder of Pivot Produce, came to Tucson in 2011. In 2014 he started as a chef at 5 Points Market & Restaurant, which emphasizes local/community-based sourcing in southern Arizona. As Erik gradually got to know the small-scale local growers that supplied 5 Points, he wanted to find a way to connect growers like them with restaurants that also recognized the benefits of a commitment to locally sourced food. To that end, he founded Pivot Produce, which enables restaurants and other food institutions to easily source products from local/regional growers and producers. Currently, he aggregates from 25+ small producers in southern Arizona and distributes to over 20