Our Vision

The Dirt Army has arrived. We are the instigators of the food revolution on campus. We were founded by a group of dedicated students as a subcommittee within the Environmental Action Alliance October 2008. Our core vision contains three parts: (1) the creation of a student garden/farm, (2) Growth in the percentage of bioregional, organic, and seasonal sustenance served in our dining hall, and (3) the installation of a composting system for the eateries on campus. As food gurus and environmental activists we draw the important connection between everyday habits and the essential movement towards sustainability: every meal can make a difference.
This inertia of our current complex food system, dependent upon industrial agriculture, developed at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Its roots are deeply embedded in the management of our country, our everyday lives, and many of the world’s enterprises. We realize the difficulty in implementing change into seemingly fixed systems, especially as we observe current struggles over our dependence on oil; yet, if we do not address the unsustainable systems that we currently endorse, who will? A new era of change has begun, and we are taking the initiative to bring this needed change.
Although progress in the area of sustainability on campus has been made, there is room for much more. For the year 2008, we received a lowly C on our sustainability report card, an evaluation put out by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Compared to the six other centennial schools reviewed (Swarthmore, Johns Hopkins, Haverford, Gettysburg, Dickinson, and Bryn Mawr), Franklin & Marshall received the lowest grade. This year we received a B in Food and Recycling category and a C in student involvement. Starting a garden, integrating bioregional and ethical food into our dining hall, and reducing our food waste would definitely reflect positively in future report cards. By no means should this evaluation dictate our future actions, but it might be a good starting point.
We envision our organic student garden as an educational sanctuary where students will address and discuss global issues on health, the environment, the economy, culture, and education. Not only will we address these problems, but more importantly, we will gain hands-on experience in developing the solutions to these problems. Facets for student participation in the greening of our campus will grow substantially with the creation of the garden and the educational benefits for the students are plentiful. It will be a place for students to conduct independent studies and a place for students to develop a sense of place, reconnect with the land, have access to alternative education, and participate in community outreach programs (gardening workshops, educational classes for elementary kids, donations to food banks). It may also provide the opportunity to integrate topics of sustainable agriculture and food systems into the curriculum at F&M, including, but not limited to, courses in the departments of biology, chemistry, environmental studies, environmental science, and American studies, and anthropology. The creation of a student garden is not an endpoint to be reached, but a springboard for future progress. It is part of a broader goal to teach people to recognize the extensive impacts food has on the environment, our culture, our health, our economy, and our future.
The second step in this process will be to coordinate with dining services to increase the availability local, organic, seasonal, and fair trade products in the dining hall. We would eventually like to incorporate our own produce into the dining hall, but, of course, it must be supplemented. By integrating bioregional products into the dining hall we will support the local economy, foster a positive relationship with the community, decrease our consumption of fossil fuels consumed in transporting current foods hundreds of miles from the other side of the country, or the other side the world, not to mention supply the students with fresh, in season, healthy, organic, delicious food. Demanding organic produce will indirectly reduce the campus’s demand for the use of harmful chemicals used in fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, whose use leads to soil degradation, biomagnfication of chemicals in the food chain harming wildlife (as Rachel Carson addresses in Silent Spring), eutrophication and pollution of waterways, acid rain, and many other detrimental side effects. Fair Trade products would also be a positive addition to the food revolution, supporting fair wages so people around the world will have the means by which to survive.
Thirdly, we aim to work alongside dining services to develop a compost system. This would significantly reduce our food wastes ending up in dumps, and would also provide needed compost for the organic garden. We would be restoring the natural cycle of materials. From plants to food, to organic waste, and back earth from which it came. We met with Dining Services last semester and they not only seemed interested, but had been looking into compost options themselves. Many other college campuses across the nation already have compost systems for food wastes implemented, so it is possible for Franklin & Marshall as well.
Food plays an integral part in our lives. It is a necessity of life, but depending on the choices we make, it is also an expression of consciousness of the impacts we have on the environment and in the lives of the people involved in producing the food on our plates. Many people do not realize that their food choices have environmental and social consequences. Despite the lack of intention, poor choices contribute to the destruction of the environment for generations to come. Food can be a continuous reminder of the role we have here on earth: By bringing the issues of modern food production to the forefront, students will be reminded every time they sit down to a meal of the impact they have and that, with simple choices, they will make a difference.
We are a group of students that strongly believe sustainable food systems is the way of the future. In the creation of this farm implementation of changes in the current campus food system, we are making the statement that divergence from the current path of unsustainable development is attainable. The garden will provide us with a means for connection: connection among students, connection with the community, connection with the land, connection with the past, and connection with the future. The future is in our hands, and the future of food is at our feet.