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With the help of a gift from the graduating Class of 2007 and
support from the Mount Holyoke Center for the Environment,
the Mount Holyoke Garden Society broke ground this summer
on a new, student-run organic garden. Students on campus
have been advocating for such a garden for the past four years,
but the group only just received permission to begin cultivation
in May 2007. The mission of the Student Garden is "to foster
an
increased awareness of the local and global interconnections
associated with food production and consumption by directly
linking the Mount Holyoke College Community to the Garden
through academics, the campus dining experience, and
student volunteer work." This objective is most clearly
expressed in the
Garden's well-known byline: "Crops for Closer Community."
The idea for a student-run organic garden on campus came
from an independent study by two students. At the time, the
two young women had no idea that their project would result in
four years of research, planning, and campus activism. Mount
Holyoke's administration was not sold on the idea immediately,
and often described their hesitancy in terms of liability issues
and lack of ongoing student support. In response, students
examined campus farms and gardens on other campuses
around the Northeast, and found solutions to the
administration's concerns. The gift from the Class of 2007
illustrated strong student support for the initiative, and finally
convinced the College's administration that the garden was a
fully supported and carefully planned program.
This year, three interns grew acorn squash, potatoes, herbs,
and pumpkins, which were sold to the College's Dining
Services this fall. Dining Services has even devoted one of its
special "gracious dinners," to the local food theme this month.
The Garden Society hopes
that by being involved in every step of the food cycle on
campus-from the
garden to dining halls to the compost bucket- it will illustrate
the
possibilities for the College's dining program. The garden will
therefore serve as a platform to initiate conversations about
local food production, food security, and overall campus
sustainability.
The garden has already been integrated into curriculum on
campus, which is one of the major goals of the garden. This
fall, three
ecology labs will visit the garden to collect data on yield from
sites that underwent different nutrient treatments throughout
the summer. This data will complement the information
collected over the course of the summer on soil attributes,
nutrient levels, weed density and composition, and insect
diversity and abundance. The Garden Society hopes to
continue integrating the garden into a variety of courses in
order to more fully illustrate the cross-disciplinary nature of
food production.
The Garden Society also hosted a lecture this fall from author
and food activist Anna Lappé, entitled "The Power of the
Plate: Food, Politics, and Social Change." This lecture is one
part of the ongoing Fall Harvest Festival, designed to raise
awareness of the new garden on campus.
The Garden Society plans to participate in the "Real Food
Summit" hosted by Yale this November. The conference-
including students, faculty, and staff from across the Northeast-
will cover a range of topics including college farms, farm
workers' rights, local purchasing, and the fair trade movement.
This coalition of students will likely serve as a source of ideas,
strategy building, and much needed solidarity in the growing
campaigns around food on college campuses. The summit is
the result of collaboration between The Food Project in
Boston, the Brown Sustainable Food Initiative, and the Yale
Sustainable Food Project.
The Mount Holyoke Student Garden is one of several
college
gardens throughout the Northeast. For more information about
the garden and the supporting student group, please contact
Morgan Lindsey at linds20m@mtholyoke.edu .Or check out the
Garden Society's regularly updated blog here.
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By Elisabeth Pixley-Fink
This article is the second part of a two-part series on the
work surrounding local food at Smith. This piece focuses on
local
purchasing initiatives in the Smith Dining Services. Please visit
the August newsletter in our
archives for an article on
the recent creation of the student-led Agricultural Action
Committee.
As the students return to campus and the regular dining
program recommences, there's a lot going on at Smith College
in regards to local food. Now in our second year, the student-
run Agricultural Action Committee is looking forward to working
closely with Dining Services and the campus community on
local food issues. And this past spring, Smith became the third
college to join CISA's Local Hero campaign, thereby making a
public commitment to supporting local farmers.
Smith Dining Services' local purchasing germinated out of work
done by the Massachusetts Farm to School Project to build
relationships between local farmers and the Five Colleges.
Brad Morse of Outlook Farm, whose family has been providing
apples to Smith since the 1940s, has been working with the
college for the past year to provide more local produce. Brad
provides Smith with a wide variety of his farm's own produce
and he sources products from other local farmers to meet
demand. This form of local distribution seems to be an
important step in making it possible for smaller farmers to sell
to institutions like Smith. Smith has also started purchasing
produce from Czajkowski Farm in Hadley and milk from High
Lawn Farm in Lee.
The rest of Smith's produce needs are met by Vermont-based
distributor Black River Produce, which has worked to
accommodate Smith's preference for locally-grown food. One
ongoing challenge has been a lack of consistent labeling
segregation of local products sourced through Black River. To
respond to this issue, Dining Services' 2eat website now has a
section entitled "Local Food," which identifies what products
being used in the dining hall are local and specifies the farms
that provide it.
(http://www.smith.edu/diningservices/menus_local.php) We
hope to work with Dining Services to continue to raise
awareness among students about Smith's work for local food
through increased signage in the cafeterias and through the
Harvest/Local Food theme nights in the dining rooms.
One way that Smith has responded to the obvious challenge of
the brief overlap of the local growing season and the school
year is by seeking local sources for products available year-
round: milk has been sourced from a local dairy for several
years, and Dining Services has identified potential sources for
eggs and honey that it hopes to implement in the coming
months.
One of our first goals is to change Smith's menus, which are
reviewed about three times a year. We have requested that in
the next revision of menus the planners hold seasonality as
their top consideration, so that as many local ingredients as
possible can be featured, particularly during the growing
season. We also hope to hold conversations with Dining
Services to develop reasonable goals for local purchases in the
next year and establish what support we can offer.
Another goal is to work with Dining Services and CISA to learn
more about Smith's role in the Valley food system and do what
we can to be a positive force. We hope that Smith's can be a
powerful ally in the movement to create a sustainable local
food infrastructure that will benefit the college, valley
residents, and farmers.
Elisabeth Pixley-Fink '08 is a native of Kalamazoo,
Michigan and is an international politics major at Smith. The
Agriculture Action Committee would love to partner with other
local organizations and welcomes comments, suggestions, and
questions. Please email epixley@email.smith.edu.
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Students at Northfield Mount Hermon don't leave academics in
the classroom. The school has developed many extracurricular
programs intended to enrich student life with opportunities to
learn through application. One of these popular programs is
the NMH Farm Program. Northfield Mount Hermon has had a
working farm on campus since the founding of the school in
1879. Though the uses of the farm have changed drastically
from that time, the farm remains an integral part of the
campus. The farm boasts vegetable, flower, and herb gardens
as well as a student-built greenhouse, sugar house, and a cider
house.
In the early days of the school, the farm was more than just an
educational facility. "This used to be a farm with a school, and
now it is a school with a farm," says Richard Odman, the Farm
Director at NMH. Throughout the years, the farm ceased being
the school's primary source of food, and eventually stopped
production. In the 1970's, a group of students campaigned to
bring the farm back into use, and Odman was hired on shortly
thereafter. The farm is now highly productive and even
supplements the food in the dining halls. Students continue to
work at the farm today under Odman's supervision. At NMH,
every student is required to participate in the daily
maintenance of the school as part of a school-wide "Work
Program." This term, forty students are working on the campus
farm for four hours per week to satisfy this "work-job"
requirement.
This year, students will also be visiting the farm in an
academic pursuit. Each student in Robert Buyea's biology class
will conduct their own independent research at the farm.
Buyea started this independent study component last spring
during his first year of teaching at NMH. The school had been
looking to formally integrate the farm into academics, and
Buyea gladly accepted the challenge. "I grew up around farms
and gained a lot of knowledge from them, so I'm glad these
students will get to participate in this kind of learning." At NMH,
biology is taught primarily as a sophomore class. Buyea
explains, "Most sophomores end up working at the farm, so it is
a nice coincidence. They need to be at the farm doing their
experiments and work job allows for them to be down there and
get it done. The programs really go hand in hand."
Each group of students will choose their own experiment based
on Buyea's guidelines. The projects will result in a self-
conducted experiment and a PowerPoint presentation to the
class. The projects cover a wide variety of topics in agriculture
including cider fermentation, plant propagation, bacterial
populations in milk, and cow reproduction. Each group will
examine the underlying processes of their topic through
background research and then test their hypotheses using
several manipulations. "This independent project gives the
students the opportunity to investigate their interests through
process learning," says Buyea. "As a teacher, you want your
students to be curious and pursue their own learning. This
allows for and encourages that."
To learn more about the farm program at NMH and to view a
charming video of the farm operations years ago, please
visit their website here.
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EVENTS
The 3rd Educational Farm Symposium November 8-10, 2007 Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, VT The Symposium will combine workshops, field trips, networking time, evening entertainment and hearty local food for 3 days of learning and fun! This event is planned to provide professional development and support to the farm- based education community of educators, farmers, and administrators. This event is sponsored by the Farm- Based Education Association (FBEA) and Shelburne Farms. To see the schedule or register, please click here. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Resource: County-oriented guide for food systems available The National Association of Counties (NACO) has published a 22-page document, Counties and Local Food Systems: Ensuring Healthy Foods, Nurturing Healthy Children, to aid local governments, the private sector, and community groups in developing policies and programs that will lead to economic enhancement, environmental stewardship, and social well- being. Sections are included on food councils, farm- to-school, infrastructure for local producers, and agricultural conservation easements. To download the guide, please click here. Resource: Farm to School in the
Northeast
The Cornell Farm to School Program, NY Farms! and the New York School Nutrition Association have released a toolkit, Farm to School in the Northeast: Making the Connection for Healthy Kids and Healthy Farms, a Toolkit for Extension Educators and Other Community Leaders. To access this great resource, please click here. Grow-Off Show-Off Contest
The Grow-Off Show-Off is a light-hearted, no-holds- barred talent contest for gardeners who cook, cooks who garden, and other garden-variety foodies. We're looking for fresh, creative entries that communicate the multiple benefits - health, environmental, culinary, and community - of home- grown, home-made foods. The Grow-Off Show-Off is a project of Kitchen Gardeners International and is co-sponsored by Mother Earth News. There are many prizes available including a $500 grand prize. For more information, please click here. Program Evaluator Sought
The National Farm to School Network is soliciting applications from program evaluators to undertake evaluation activities for the initiative. To receive a copy of the RFP, please contact Claire@buylocalfood.com. Applications should be submitted by Oct 15, 2007. New Resource From The Center For Food and
Justice
A Growing Movement: A Decade of Farm to School in California, by Anupama Joshi and Moira Beery of the Center for Food & Justice at Occidental College, is a brand new resource from the California Farm to School Program at the Center for Food & Justice. The farm to school movement began in California more than 10 years ago. This report tells the story of work undertaken by farm to school proponents in California and chronicles the emergence of the program, and the impacts it has had on students, farmers, and communities around the state. To download the report, please click here. Youth Garden Grants Program
The National Gardening Association and Home Depot offer the Youth Garden Grants Program, which awards grants to schools and community organizations with child-centered garden programs. Applicants must plan to garden in 2008 with at least 15 children between the ages of three and 18 years. In 2008, 150 programs will receive gift cards to The Home Depot for the purchase of gardening materials and supplies particular to the needs of their program, and an activity package from NGA. The top 50 programs will receive gift cards valued at $500, and 100 will receive $250 gift cards. Grants are available for both start-up and established youth garden programs. Proposals are due November 1, 2007. For more information, please click here. "Love Your Veggies" Grants Available from Hidden
Valley
The makers of Hidden Valley® ranch dressings, owned by The Clorox Company, will be awarding more than a half million dollars in grants next year to elementary schools nationwide to support increased access to, and consumption of, fresh vegetables during lunch. For more information, please click here. VT FEED Regional Farm to School Lead
Agency
VT FEED has been selected as the Northeast Farm to School Regional Lead Agency for the National Farm to School Network. The National Farm to School Network's activities will be focused on five key areas - policy, networking, media and marketing, information services and training and technical assistance to support the farm to school movement in the country. The National Farm to School Network is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. It is jointly coordinated by the Center for Food & Justice, a division of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College, and the Community Food Security Coalition. For more information, please click here. Slow Food Campus Convivia
Slow Food USA is pleased to announce the expansion of their Slow Food membership chapters to college and university campuses across the country. Slow Food on Campus chapters (called Campus Convivia) will hold events and conduct projects to engage the campus and larger community in dialogue about the state of the food system. For more information, please click here. |
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RESEARCH
Overweight Children More Likely to Miss School The heavier a child, the more likely he or she is to be absent from school. The results of a new study by the University of Pennsylvania found that overweight children are at greater risk of school absenteeism than their normal-weight peers, missing 20 percent more school days, on average. The study raised as many questions as it answers. "I believe that psychosocial factors, not physical ones, are keeping overweight kids from going to school," said Andrew Geier, lead researcher and a doctoral student at Penn. For more information, please click here. Summer Meal Gap Persists
Many low-income children still go hungry when school is out. "Fewer than one out of every five eligible low- income children participated in the summer nutrition programs in 2006," reported the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C. in its annual Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report, released on July 24, 2007. Although 17.4 million low-income children got a nutritious daily meal during the regular school year, only 2.85 million - a mere 17.7 percent of eligible children - got fed last year when school was out. That ratio is down from 22.2 percent in 2000. FRAC recommends expansion of the Simplified Summer Food Service Program, which eases administrative burdens for the receipt of federal reimbursements for summer meals. To see the full report, please click here. NEWS
The School Cafeteria, on a Diet The New York Times published an article on September 5, 2007 about attempts to restrict unhealthy food choices in schools and the backlash such attempts have faced. To see full article, please click here. Save dollars, improve health with better options in
school food
Click here to read an opinion piece published in the Des Moines Register about the connections between the farm bill, school lunch, and health care costs. Lunch Prices Rising
School boards across the nation are approving increases in lunch prices for paying students due to various factors, including gas prices, food costs, labor, and serving healthier items, said the School Nutrition Association (SNA) in a June 14, 2007 news release. Although the 17.4 million children who qualify for free or reduced price meals will not be directly affected, schools may be charging the 12.4 million students who pay full price more for their meals in order to help maintain overall cafeteria operations. For the 2006-2007 school year just completed, the national average cost of a school lunch was $1.80. For more information, please click here. Commodity Donation Level Announced
In addition to cash reimbursements for operating costs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) also provides a specified amount of donated commodity foods to schools and institutions serving meals under the National School Lunch and Child and Adult Care Food Programs. USDA recently determined that the value of donated foods for the period of July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008 would be 18.75 cents per meal. For more information, please click here. Rules for Afterschool Snacks Finalized
Procedures for the provision of afterschool snacks to at-risk children 18 years of age and younger through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) were issued by USDA in the July 31, 2007 Federal Register. This final rule describes eligibility for afterschool care centers and stipulates CACFP meal pattern requirements for service of the snacks. For more information, please click here. Report on School Breakfast Released
The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C. looked at 23 large school districts, selected on the basis of size and geographic representation, and examined the operations and reach of their breakfast programs, in Breakfast in America's Big Cities. Several schools failed to reach a bare majority of low-income students with their breakfast program. The survey found that school strategies that make breakfast part of the school day, such as universal breakfast, "grab and go" options, and breakfast in the classroom, were the most effective ways to reach children. For more information and FRAC's report, Breakfast in America's Big Cities, please click here. School Meals Getting More Nutritious
In most places where school meals - both breakfast and lunch - are served, the meals are becoming healthier. More than 87 percent of school districts nationwide now have nutrition requirements for both foods and beverages sold by school food service, up from just 30 percent in 2005, according to the School Nutrition Association (SNA) of Alexandria, VA, in its recently-released School Nutrition Operations Report: The State of School Nutrition 2007. The Association also noted that more than three out of five school districts also have policies in place for nutritious foods and beverages sold by groups outside the cafeteria. For more information, please click here. |
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