|
Prescott College Serves Up New
Program to Feed Students, Faculty and Staff
Prescott, Ariz. - Prescott College is serving up a new Community Supported
Agriculture (CSA) program, the first college-run program of its kind in the
Southwest, to feed students, faculty and staff during the school year. The
Prescott College CSA, started and run by students, contracts with local farmers
for "shares" of crops and distributes the produce each week to
shareholders.
Prescott College is the first college in the Southwest region of the United
States to initiate a CSA program. In addition, the program model, which is
a bit different than traditional CSAs, is the first of its kind in the country
at a college or university.
"Prescott College's CSA is unique because of its complexity, which
arises in part because of the multiple farms involved. Most other CSA's contract
with one farm and provide food only during the summer. We are contracting
with multiple local growers, who farm at different elevations, to provide
during the school year," said Professor Tim Crews of the agroecology
program and director of Wolfberry Farm, the college's 30-acre experimental
farm.
Prescott College's CSA has contracted with seven farms, including Wolfberry
Farm, to feed a partial diet to 70 shareholders from September to May. Approximately
half of the shareholders are students, with the other half split among faculty
and staff.
CSA programs have many advantages, said Heather Houk, a senior agroecology
major and one of four students who started the CSA through a group independent
study. "CSA is a guaranteed market for farmers. We buy food directly
from the farmers, giving them a better and more predictable income and in
turn give the shareholders more produce at a better price."
Shareholders paid $330 for a 9-month contract and receive about two grocery
bags worth of produce each week. They also had the option to buy 25 pounds
of range-fed beef for $60.
Frank Geminden of Windmill Garden in Camp Verde, who produces squash, eggplant,
tomatoes, black eyed peas, okra, and sweet and hot peppers, among other crops,
agrees CSA is good for farmers. "Anytime a farmer can find another market,
it's worthwhile. I wear many hats, from the grower to the picker to the marketer,
and when there's an alternative market, I go for it."
CSAs not only keep food dollars in the local community and create economically
stable farm operations but have environmental advantages as well.
"This program allows us to take responsibility for the environmental
impact of our food and was inspired by the College's initiative to become
more ecologically accountable for all its operations," said Crews. "Most
food in the U.S. travels 1,200 to 1,500 miles before it is eaten. Buying
food regionally reduces travel time, the use of fossil fuels and the need
for packaging. It creates a partial nutrient cycle because compost can be
collected and returned to the farms. By contracting locally, shareholders
can influence a farmer's environmental practices by paying them to grow produce
organically and can visit the farms and see how the land is stewarded."
While the Prescott College CSA is large in comparison with other fledgling
CSAs, the College hopes to expand the program even further within the next
few years, said Houk. "Within three years we'd like to see full school
support, with virtually everyone at the college a member and new students
enrolled automatically as part of their tuition. We hope to add dairy and
chicken products and provide the school with 50-75 percent of their diet."
Crews, who is overseeing the CSA, sees the initiation of this project as
a very important event. "As a College with a strong educational and
environmental mission, we will look back upon the time the school started
feeding itself through regional agriculture as a milestone event."
|
