Support Grows To Save UCR’s R’Garden After Failed Student Referendum

Plots of vegetation welcome those coming into the R’Garden at the University of California, Riverside. Walking through the space, visitors can spot lavender, buckwheat, hummingbird sage, yarrow, deer grass, lupins, coyote mint, an elderberry bush, California lilacs and even an apple tree that sits off to the side. 

The R’Garden, a fertile area on UCR’s campus, was founded more than a decade ago after two student organizations, Sustainable UCR and Cultivate R’Space, circulated a petition advocating for the space in 2012. Timothy White, the chancellor at the time, allotted $145,723 for start-up costs, and the grand opening was held later that year. 

Since then, the garden has become a space where students, faculty and community members can grow food, practice sustainability and participate in mutual aid efforts.

Produce from the garden has been distributed at on-campus pop-ups, and it’s been given to Casa Blanca pantry, Feeding America in the Inland Empire and Riverside Food Not Bombs. It’s also been delivered to R’Pantry. According to Judy Crawford, director of the Basic Needs department at UCR, 1.3% of the total food distributed by the on-campus food pantry during the 2024-2025 academic year came from the garden.

The space has also been host to numerous workshops and harvest festivals, though the college of natural and agricultural sciences (CNAS) administration canceled a live music event earlier this year due to an “unspecified ‘risk,’” according to a post on the R’Garden Instagram account.

“The February concert was cancelled when college officials became aware that campus event protocols had not been followed,” according to Joann Young, the assistant dean of communications and strategic initiatives for CNAS, who added that there were, “no current plans for a benefit concert.” 

That event, according to the social media post, was planned in an effort to raise awareness of an April referendum that would have allocated much-needed funding to the garden by imposing an additional $10 fee on students each quarter if passed. 

The Basic Needs department at UCR provided funds for garden operations and staffing going back to 2021, according to Crawford, but that financial support ended in June.

Despite garnering the support of some 70% of voting undergraduates, the spring referendum failed to meet the required 20% threshold for student participation to pass.

Anahita Hooshyari far, a student senator this past spring who will serve as the Green Campus Action Plan (GCAP) director this coming academic year, sat on the ASCUR GCAP committee that worked on the garden referendum. 

“The R’Garden worked so, so hard to promote themselves [and] promote their operations,” she said. “And because they’re a little bit further from the main campus—they’re literally by Lot 30, and people don’t always know what the R’Garden is or where it’s located—they really did the outreach, especially through the interns, especially GCAP, helping out to promote.” 

Jah Johnson, an undergraduate and intern at the garden, wrote an op-ed published April 29 in the student paper, about R’Garden’s open-air composting program and encouraged readers to vote in support of the referendum. 

But those efforts were stymied by a revised university policy that banned the posting of temporary signage in relation to the election.

The decision demonstrated a lack of trust in students, said Anthony Moreno, one of two advocates who work in the garden as California Climate Corps Action fellows.

“That’s censorship,” he said, noting that the policy factored into his decision not to apply to UCR, despite calling Riverside home. 

Moreno’s tenure as a fellow concludes at the end of the month.

Angel Canales, the other fellow, said it all seemed rushed.

“They kind of just pushed it through, and then everyone had to react accordingly to it because there was no way to try to appeal that,” he said. 

Rebecca Leung, an R’Garden volunteer who graduated from UCR in 2024, said garden advocates chose to comply with the new policy due to concerns that it would impact their ability to have the referendum on the ballot.  

“If you did things that were outside of the campus policies for advocation, they could literally pull the referendum off the bill,” she said. “They were basically threatening us, ‘You do this. You either listen to our rules or you do not have a referendum anymore.’” 

The university did not respond to The Record’s request for comment on the policy prior to publication.

The Friday after the referendum failed, Canales said he and those invested in the garden were texting each other and figuring out how to regroup. The next week they emailed different administrators and arranged meetings to seek emergency funds.  

In the past, students affiliated with the garden showed solidarity with undergraduate workers wanting to unionize. That support was reciprocated in the wake of the failed initiative.

In late May, the student newspaper editorial board published an opinion piece encouraging readers to write to Peter Atkinson, the CNAS dean, imploring him to fund the garden. 

Faculty in the department of society, environment, and health equity (SEHE) championed the garden, and one offered at student course credit for volunteering there, Leung said.

Professors, including those in SEHE, helped prepare and circulate a petition calling on UC administration to save the space. The petition was sent to Atkinson. 

It served as the vehicle for getting a meeting with him, Canales said, “and we were able to confirm that bridge funding would happen for another year.”

Atkinson told The Record that CNAS bridge funding would sustain garden operations in the short term while the school explored how to ensure underwriting going forward.   

“In the meantime, we are working with campus partners, agricultural operations, and CNAS faculty and staff to establish a solid foundation to support the future of R’Garden,” Atkinson said. 

In a May 23 letter posted online, Atkinson said CNAS was also going to continue supporting the garden’s continued operation by “extending the use of land, water and other agricultural resources,” until a new referendum could be put to a vote during the coming school year.

Canales said he’s already prepared the budget and paperwork for the next referendum. 

“But it has to pass,” he said.