The Garden of Cam

Picture this. It’s 2020 at Colorado State University and students, faculty, and even the outside community of Fort Collins are gathered together in celebration of food. This food, however, is no ordinary food; it is the product of the hard work of people from various backgrounds with different interests and goals. Where are they harvesting from? The CSU campus garden, of course. It could be argued that the food that comes out of this garden not only tastes better because it is fresh and nutritious, but also because it holds greater sentimental value for growers than just any average Joe apple at the grocery store. Through the campus garden participants learn about horticulture, sustainable food practices and teamwork. The garden acts as a symbol of CSU’s dedication to the environment and sustainability. As a source of food for the campus and surrounding Fort Collins area, the Garden of Cam is not only a statement of CSU’s green initiative, but also a provider and unifier. People come to this garden to connect with the food they eat and respect it as essential nourishment and a medium for learning and socializing that makes consumption more meaningful. It is a place that teaches people about the true value of food in our everyday lives, how to work with nature and others to grow food, and how to better enjoy one’s food.

University of Utah edible garden program

 

Become One with Nature

In broad terms, “student gardens help turn a younger generation on to the joy of growing their own food, offer educational opportunities, and provide for more healthful food choices”. A campus garden provides students with a place to take control of where their food comes from, connect with their environment and understand the work put into cultivating food. For teachers, a garden would be a perfect setting for interdisciplinary studies and hands on/ experiential learning. “University food gardens provide formal education that overcomes many institutional barriers to interdisciplinary programs/ education” and “experiential learning leads to greater environmental awareness”. Furthermore, incorporating more whole, local foods into dining hall menus and throughout the surrounding community of CSU would present beneficiaries with fresher, healthier food options. Jack Baker and Jeffrey Bilbro explain in Putting Down Roots: Why Universities Need Gardens that gardening as a community can shape students to create deeper connections with their place, to desire more adequate health standards and to develop gratitude for their food. Gardening keeps us present and aware of our surroundings and place in the environment. We become thoughtful of how we impact and how we are impacted by nature through food.

UC Berkeley students visiting on-campus garden

 

Save Nature

On an even Broader note, “growing a community garden promotes health and wellness, provides a place for leisure, provides food for those in need, creates wildlife habitats, storm water control or water quality improvement, and provides teaching opportunities”. Beyond health and educational benefits, campus gardens can help universities become more sustainable. In Susie Wall’s, Campus Gardens Make Dining a Fresh Experience, she points out that “gardens can offer stormwater control and a way to cut disposal costs and recycle waste from the cafeteria by turning it into compost”. For example, since starting their gardening program, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) has composted more than half a million pounds of food waste that is then used in a campus garden, with produce coming back to the dining halls. CSU is no stranger to composting and provides many accommodations to facilitate the reduce, reuse, recycle agenda. Therefore, a campus garden compliments the environmentally conscious philosophy of the university. Going a step further and using the compost produced on campus as the fertilizer for the crops that we send to dining halls, food pantries, farmers’ markets, you name it, would add to the value of the food we consume on a spiritual, health and sustainability level. In University Food Gardens: A Unifying Place for Higher Education Sustainability, Leslie A. Duram is referenced stating, “students feel there are pressing global environmental problems and climate change is happening now, and they don’t know what they can do about it.  Campus gardens provide an outlet for their broader environmental concern. It’s an individual action that they can take to help the environment and make a statement.”. This correlates with Amanda Kelly’s suggestion in College community gardens grow more than just vegetables that having a campus garden that students made and manage themselves gives a community a sense of ownership. This sense of ownership equips a university and its associated community to be more responsible in food consumption practices. Through the learning opportunities of a campus garden, CSU can better understand and appreciation how food is produced and gets to our plates. Participants must learn which plants will grow in the geographic/ climate zone of CSU and accommodate their appetites to these crops, and to the seasons they are harvested in. As Baker and Bilbro put it, “we thus begin to live within the limits of what our place can allow and become more able to lead lives of reciprocity and responsibility”. Thus, campus gardens provide local food, sustainability education, campus biodiversity, and a place for community-building.

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis campus garden

 

Save Humanity

Supporting those in need whom are experiencing food insecurity can also be pursued through a campus garden. Tara Bahrampour reveals that besides providing food for campus dining halls, campus gardens can donate to local food banks and other organizations for those in need in her article In planting campus gardens, university students root themselves in the larger world. For example, “the University of Virginia used the student garden as a way to give back to the community by donating food to local low-income families”. Bahrampour adds that produce from these gardens can go to the universities food pantry for students and others in the community experiencing food insecurity, a challenge on college campuses. At CSU, produce from the campus garden could go to such pantries or food banks, as well as the FOCO Cafe, Aspen Grill, Farmer’s Markets, etc. In College community gardens grow more than just vegetables, Amanda Kelly suggests donating to “food deserts” (areas that have limited access to fresh and affordable food). Hence campus gardens provide food in a form of social justice that spreads sustainability awareness and unites people while bringing healthy food to all.

University of Wisconsin donates the majority of its produce to the Whitewater Community Food Pantry

 

Enjoy a Job Well Done

Clearly the concept of a community garden implies that a big part of its function is to build community. Through the development of a stronger, more thoughtful community via gardening, the produce harvested from the 2020 CSU garden will have more significance since it has a story behind its cultivation that is relevant and unique to the people who eat it. For instance, “the University of Minnesota Morris has partnered with local businesses, student groups and representatives of Native American nations to establish a garden adjacent to the campus to honor the knowledge and cultural practices of traditional Native American farming”. A campus garden is a source of educational inspiration and opportunity, as well as a way to feed those in need, incorporate yet more environmentally sustainable practices into the CSU campus and draw in people from the surrounding community. Thus, “community stakeholders exist on two levels: The campus community is comprised of faculty, staff, and students who come to the garden to relax and reflect. The greater civic or regional community views the garden and staff as a source of creative inspiration, expertise, and education”.

University of Pennsylvania students come together in community garden

 

The Future Keeps getting Brighter

Now, it’s true that there are obstacles associated with implementing and managing a campus garden, including, but not limited to “lack of financial resources, time, interdisciplinary research, space, and specialization in sustainability of participants, and pollution prevention practices need time to show cost-saving benefits”. However, given that CSU is dedicated to protecting and restoring the environment and all the benefits a campus garden could bring to the university and surrounding Fort Collins area, not much convincing should be necessary. Realizing that food consumption is truthfully, a highly political action, incorporating a successful community garden into the CSU campus would make a statement- CSU is willing to make drastic changes to come to the aid of the community and environment. After all, “it is argued that the barrier suggested to be of greatest significance, budgetary constraints, is at least partly due to a lack of knowledge concerning how greening initiatives can save costs as well as an institutional reluctance to change” says Marianne Dahle. If CSU can overcome resistance to change and fiscal constraints, I’m sure that a campus garden would be a major success. Long term, if the campus garden is maintained well, it will bring more benefits than costs. According to the Association of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), more than 100 U.S. universities now have gardens. What is CSU waiting for?

 

Biography

I, Casey Johnston, am a freshman in the honors program at CSU. My major is in Environmental Engineering and I plan to graduate in the Spring of 2022. A personal interest in cooking and food culture as well as my value for sustainable consumption practices brought me to the honors seminar “You Are What You Eat- Food in Our Everyday Lives”.

 

References

1. Bahrampour, Tara. “In Planting Campus Gardens, University Students Root Themselves in the Larger World.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Sept. 2018, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/09/01/in-planting-campus-gardens-university-students-root-themselves-in-the-larger-world/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2422306bc835.
2. Baker, Jack R., and Jeffrey Bilbro. “Putting Down Roots: Why Universities Need Gardens.” White Library Digital Repository Home, Christian Scholar’s Review, Winter 2016, Vol. XLV, No. 2, 22 Jan. 2016, whitelibrary.dspacedirect.org/handle/11210/50.
3. Duram, Leslie A., and Sydney K. Klein. “University Food Gardens: a Unifying Place for Higher Education Sustainability.” International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, vol. 9, no. 3/4, 2015, p. 282., doi:10.1504/ijisd.2015.071853.
4. Gerber, Judi. “Creating Campus Gardens | Care2 Healthy Living.” Healthy Living, Care2, 5 Sept. 2011, http://www.care2.com/greenliving/creating-campus-gardens.html.
5. “International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.” Emerald | International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Information, University Leaders for a Sustainable Future; MCB University Press, Emerald, 2018,

• Dahle, Marianne, Overcoming barriers to campus greening: A survey among higher educational institutions in London, UK
• Velazquez, Luis, Deterring sustainability in higher education institutions: An appraisal of the factors which influence sustainability in higher education institutions

http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=ijshe.

6. Jambeck, Jenna R., et al. “FOOD SCRAPS TO COMPOSTING… AND BACK TO FOOD.” Sustainableunh.unh.edu, Biocycle, Dec. 2006, sustainableunh.unh.edu/sites/sustainableunh.unh.edu/files/images/UNHComposting_BioCycleCover_Dec2006.pdf.
7. Jones, Kristy. “Growing On Campus: 4 Sustainable Gardens at American Colleges & Universities.” The National Wildlife Federation Blog, National Wildlife Federation, 6 Jan. 2016, blog.nwf.org/2011/11/students-and-staff-growing-their-own-four-campus-gardens/.
8.               Kelly, Amanda. “College Community Gardens Grow More than Just Vegetables.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 31 May 2012, http://www.usatoday.com/story/college/2012/05/31/college-community-gardens-grow-more-than-just-vegetables/37393925/.
9. Scoggins, Holly L. “University Garden Stakeholders: Student, Industry, and Community Connections.” HortTechnology, The American Society for Horticultural Science, 1 June 2010, horttech.ashspublications.org/content/20/3/528.short.
10. Wall, Susie. “Campus Gardens Make Dining a Fresh Experience – Community – GRIT Magazine.” Grit, Ogden Publications, Inc, 2012, www.grit.com/departments/campus-gardens-zmgz12sozgou.
11. “Sustainability.utah.edu.” Sustainability.utah.edu, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 2018, sustainability.utah.edu/edible-campus-gardens/.
12.    “Food.berkeley.edu.” Food.berkeley.edu, Berkeley Food Institute, Berkeley, CA, 2018, food.berkeley.edu/programs/community-engagement-edu/campus-gardens/.
13.    “The Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Campus Garden.” Asunow.asu.edu, Wikimedia Commons, Bloomington/ West Lafayette, Indiana, The Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis campus garden.
14.    Enterline, Wesley. “Courtney (Left) and Volunteers Mariann and Laird Scott from the Whitewater Food Pantry.” Blogs.eww.edu, Whitewater, 7 Sept. 2017, blogs.uww.edu/sustainability/2017/09/07/summer-in-the-campus-garden/.
15.    Holmberg, Ty. “The Community Farm and Food Resource Center at Bartram’s Garden Is Located Just a 10 Minute Trolley Ride Away from Campus.” Www.thedp.com, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 7 Apr. 2016, http://www.thedp.com/article/2016/04/bartrams-garden-community-partnership.