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Pilot Program 'Gives Back' to Local
Farmers
By
Carol
Spence
LEXINGTON, Ky., (Aug. 16, 2006) – As students stream onto the
University of Kentucky campus for the start of fall semester,
they’ll soon discover that some of them traveled farther than
the food they’ll eat. In an age when much of the food on grocery
shelves travels an average of 1500 miles from producer to
retailer, UK is making a concerted effort to narrow that
distance. Starting in August, a pilot program at the university
will offer fresh, locally grown produce in all campus
restaurants.
“It’s (local produce) something our customers want. It’s
something we want to provide,” said Roger Sidney, assistant
director of UK Dining Services.
Sidney approached UK horticulture assistant professor Mark
Williams six months ago about providing campus restaurants with
produce grown on UK farms. Williams was hesitant to do that
because “it’s taking money away from local farmers.” Instead, he
formed a committee with Sidney and the College of Agriculture’s
Tim Woods, Jim Mansfield, Lee Meyer, Mark Keating and Herb
Strobel. The team devised a three-month pilot program that will
test the feasibility of using locally produced products in all
20 dining areas on campus.
The program is in line with House Bill 669, which the Kentucky
legislature passed during the 2006 session of the General
Assembly. The bill requires that state agencies buy
Kentucky-grown agricultural products, dependent upon their
availability, quality and pricing.
Though it is not clear yet how this affects state universities,
UK is investigating the potential behind having local food
options available.
“We want to tie into all that and make UK one of the leaders in
supporting local agriculture,” Williams said. “Hopefully, with
the buying power that they have they can create an excellent
marketing option for some of our local growers, and perhaps even
influence others interested in developing similar programs
elsewhere in our state.”
To Williams, the leader behind the creation of the College of
Agriculture’s new four-year degree program in sustainable
agriculture, one of the hallmarks of sustainable agriculture is
the support of local food economies. That’s what UK is trying to
build with this pilot program, he said.
Mansfield, senior Extension associate in the Department of
Agricultural Economics, sees widespread benefits in opening
markets such as this.
“We keep the dollars at the local economy, we support keeping
green space open with viable farm enterprises and people get
fresh produce,” he said.
Finding local markets is not as easy as it might sound, however.
Farmers who are new to the produce field and who are accustomed
to the fairly stable tobacco, corn or beef markets may be unsure
of the outlets available to them.
“If a farmer wants to try produce for the first time, there’s no
place that they can go to have a ready market. They have to find
the market. They have to find the customer willing to buy and
grow what the customer wants them to grow,” Mansfield said.
But having a market even before fields are sown can change the
whole landscape of vegetable or fruit farming, Williams said. A
viable market will also encourage farmers to see the economic
feasibility in extending the growing season by investing in
tools such as unheated greenhouses or high tunnels, all the
while increasing the potential for a stronger bottom line.
“Having a market, having a place to sell produce, that’s a
pretty unique thing to start with,” he said. “So if there’s a
place for people to sell this food, it can drive not only
research, but it can hopefully show farmers that there’s a need
and a market for extending their season.”
UK Dining Services has initially linked with Elmwood Stock Farm
in Scott County and Reed Valley Orchard in Harrison County for
the trial period. Mansfield said they are hoping to get other
farmers involved as they work through some of the logistics
issues in the pilot project.
Elmwood’s Ann Bell Stone made the first delivery of cantaloupe,
squash, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes bright and early on an
August morning. She thinks Elmwood was a good fit for the trial
because her family had experience in packaging and boxing
quantities of product, as well as delivering to area restaurants
and local institutions over the past 15 years.
The tomatoes filling the bed of her truck spoke volumes about
the advantages to offering locally grown produce in UK’s dining
halls.
“It’s definitely a fresher product,” she said. “It’s much nicer
to have a tomato that’s picked at the peak of ripeness and the
peak of flavor and all the nutritional benefits that go with
having a ripe fruit versus a well traveled fruit.”
“I think it’s important in a couple of ways,” said Jeff DeMoss,
executive director of UK Dining Services. “We know where the
produce is coming from. We can go to that farm. We can see
what’s going on.”
He added that it’s also about “giving it back.”
“You know, 60 percent of our university is Kentucky born and I
think that’s important, too,” he said. “Because some of these
young people who work for us, some of these young people who are
in classes, their moms and dads are farmers.”
“My hope is that if this thing takes off it can be a model that
is used by lots of other state agencies or schools,” Williams
said. “When one of the flagship research and academic
institutions in the state sets the standard, if that happens, if
we can really develop something here, I think that can have a
lot of impact. If we can develop local food economies, this can
increase our food security, and it puts the money back in the
hands of the people in this state, not from California or …
other parts of the world.”
There’s even a simpler idea at work here, as well, according to
Dining Services’ Sidney.
“We want to be part of the community and give back to the
community. This is something that’s a no-brainer for us,” he
said. |
Contact: Mark Williams, 859-257-2638
Jim
Mansfield, 859-257-7272, ext. 223
Jeff
DeMoss, 859-257-6156
Roger
Sidney, 859-257-6171 |
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The UK College
of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension
to enhance the lives of Kentuckians. |
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