College Farms

College Farm

Colleges and universities are establishing programs to grow fruits and vegetables and raise livestock, then providing the fruits of their labors to their dining halls. This student-driven trend is an effort to produce healthy, locally grown foods for their communities while learning about the environment and sustainable growing practices.

“These students want to create a more sustainable world, and they’re helping campuses connect more deeply with our foods,” says Dr. John Gerber, a professor in the University of Massachusetts’ Stockbridge School of Agriculture.

Farms Are Working Classrooms

With a student body of 850, Warren Wilson College is a far cry from a large university, yet its farm is well known in national agricultural circles. The North Carolina school, along the Swannanoa River, is nearly self-supporting and has been growing its own foods for much of its 121-year existence.

Warren Wilson’s sustainable agriculture farm is one of many student work crews that support the operation of the college, which has won numerous sustainability awards. The farm consists of 275 acres of mixed crops and livestock. Each year, the school cafeteria serves about 15,000 pounds of the farm’s grass-fed beef, pork and chicken, and also sells about 15,000 pounds of beef and pork annually to the local community.

Cafeterias: A Locavore’s New Frontier

The programs at UMass and Warren Wilson are part of a fast-growing trend that also extends to younger students – a 2011-2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture survey found that 44 percent of U.S. public school districts have Farm to School programs in place, and many are organizing schoolyard gardens.

 “It makes it more real and exciting if you know that the tomato you are about to eat came from the student farm,” Benoit from Warren Wilson says.

by Rob Long