Carleton & Kenyon Local Food Ventures Featured

Rob Hardy let me know about an article in today's Inside Higher Education about the growing momentum toward bringing more local foods into college dining halls and student special-interest houses, with particular spotlights on Carleton and Kenyon Colleges. It's a topic I've written about before, having been particularly impressed with the dedication shown by Kenyon's Food For Thought program.

Here is the article, titled "Campus Food From Around the Corner."

Thanks, Rob!

More on Food For Thought

I recently wrote about the Food For Thought curriculum at Kenyon College, as I was fascinated and delighted that a top liberal arts college would build a whole academic sequence exploring the value of local, sustainable food production. When her dad and I delivered our daughter there last Thursday and ate lunch in one of the cafeterias, I noticed Food For Thought signs around the serving area, encouraging all who eat there to think about where their food comes from and who produces it. The college has been buying at least some of their produce from local providers since 2004. I found more about the program's outreach to the entire college community on their website:

Kenyon’s efforts to educate about food do not stop at the classroom door. Working with the College’s dining service, AVI Foodsystems, Food for Thought has begun to turn the cafeteria into a classroom with materials about food and local rural life. Signs at food stations highlight local ingredients in menu selections. Tabletop displays, many created by students in conjunction with their coursework, explore the history of agriculture in Knox County, offer biographies of local food producers, and examine the nutritional value of the foods we eat. Plans are underway for a series of student-produced films on local agriculture, to be shown in the dining hall on a large-screen monitor.

I'll continue to follow this program with interest, and to be equally interested in what our local colleges are doing along these lines. I know that St. Olaf has the STOGROW farm, and that the Bon Appetit food service buys much of the farm's produce for use in the dining hall there. There is a nice discussion of Bon Appetit's contributions to sustainability at St. Olaf in this report.

Carleton has its Farm Club Organic Gardens, and their site says they have sold produce to the food service providers in the past. In conversation with a Carleton faculty member not long ago, I was given to understand that Carleton's current food service provider, Sodexho-Marriott, is not set up to easily allow individual sites to support local food producers. I understand the economic benefits of contracting with large suppliers, but I hope they'll find a way to build in some flexibility in that regard. There is more information about food and sustainability at Carleton in this report, which notes that "an emphasis is being put on purchasing from Food Alliance certified farms in the Midwest" but acknowledges that as of the date of the report, that proportion is less than 2% of the food budget.

Academically speaking, I see that in Carleton's biology department, David Hougen-Eitzman -- who with his wife, Laurie, operates the Big Woods Farm CSA in Nerstrand -- teaches a seminar on sustainable agriculture. At St. Olaf, student research on agricultural practices has been put to use by farmers who rent St. Olaf land, and incorporated into biology and environmental studies classes, according to their Natural Lands webpage.

It's good to see the interaction between these institutions of higher learning, which are not land-grant universities offering standard programs in agriculture, and the status of our food and our local farms.

"Food for Thought" at Kenyon College

In about 11 days, my eldest daughter is heading off for her first year at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio. Remembering those heady days of perusing a course catalog and trying to decide what classes to register for, I was ... well, perusing her course catalog and deciding what I would take if I could go back to college now. I discovered to my joy that Kenyon offers a special cross-disciplinary, multi-course initiative that explores food, farming and rural life. It's called Food for Thought. Here are some outtakes from the catalog:

Understanding our food sources raises many questions of national and global significance. How will rising petroleum costs affect the availability and cost of food? What is the impact of current farming practices on the environment? How do the cultural meanings we associate with food influence eating habits? Does the loss of small landholding farmers diminish the foundation of a democratic society? ...

Much of the work accomplished in these courses will contribute to an ambitious public project to build a sustainable market for foods produced in and around Knox County. Students and faculty are conducting research on local food supplies and consumer buying habits, developing a local food warehouse and retail outlet in Mount Vernon, and creating exhibits to raise public understanding about the many ways our food choices affect us as individuals and as a society...

Courses in the program include practical issues in ethics, sustainable agriculture, solar energy, photography, American culture and the environment, anthropology of food, and introduction to environmental studies.

By taking three courses, completing a summer internship on a farm that uses ecological production methods, and attending workshops and conferences, students may receive The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA)-Kenyon Certificate in Ecological Agriculture. This program:

... gives students the opportunity to develop intellectual skills and practical knowledge regarding food and farming systems. Students will (1) develop an understanding of the complex nature of agroecosystems, (2) critically analyze the social, political, and economic institutions in which food and farming systems are embedded, and (3) explore the interplay of social values, personal responsibility, and the achievement of environmental and community goals.

For additional information about Food for Thought, visit the Kenyon Rural Life Center Web site.

If I could go back to college with my current life experience and passions, this -- at least in part -- is what I would be doing. There's no doubt in my mind about that.