02421 Design a college food system
Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to not caring-to the carelessness of both producers and consumers that characterizes our economy today. Of course, the global economy couldn't very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds. This is why the American food industry and its international counterparts fight to keep their products from telling even the simplest stories — "dolphin safe," "humanely slaughtered," etc. — about how they were produced. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values-and not just "value"-will inform their purchasing decisions. — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
In 02091, we visioned a bit in order to describe a permacultured college food system. How does this compare to your specific situation in school? You should do this assignment, even if you live off campus, because you need design practice. Sure, you are only a beginning permaculture designer, does that mean you can’t look at your situation and see how it can be different?
It will be best if you do this with some permie friends. If you don’t have any permie friends — find some. If necessary, run an ad in Craig's List.
The situation described in 02091 is different from the food systems of most college cafeterias. A common model is to contract with a national food delivery corporation to operate the campus dining facilities. Many college cafeterias feed their students the same junk food crap that stocks our supermarkets.
But even in the absence of a permacultured food system on campus, there is much that college students can do to promote college food security.
Organize for better food.
Better food security for your college begins with careful observation of your situation. There is a lot to take in. You should probably begin by starting an on-campus permaculture organization that can advocate with your college administration for better food security for the campus.
Network with and involve off-campus local and regional food security organizations. Your campus organization can amplify its impact as you build relationships with off-campus organizations to create a better food system with invisible structures that support a more just, sustainable, and resilient food system for your area. In turn, off-campus organizations can help you get a better food system on campus. Don’t forget alumni groups!
Find sympathetic faculty members. You’ll need a campus sponsor and the more faculty you can get on your side, the more effective your discussions with your campus administration will be.
What your group’s goals and aspirations for your college food system?
How many students does your campus feed every day? How many places does it feed them? Are these all controlled by one food service organization? Is food service a campus project? Are food services contracted to outside corporations? Who owns the food service equipment and other campus food service infrastructure? Is there any organic or locally produced food served?
What is the status of local food production? What products do farmers produce in your area? In what quantities?
Does your school own land other than its immediate campus? Does it own farms and pastures? Schools often have inventories of assets like farms and ranches that are left to them by donors in wills. They simply rent them out and spend their rent money on school activities. Such lands could be used to grow food for on-campus consumption.
Study and Evaluate. After a thorough observation, study and evaluate your observations. Your group could issue a “grade” for your campus food system and this could be an opportunity for more work with your campus administration. Don’t hesitate to flunk your campus food system if they do nothing for community food security. Make this a public event.
How much food does your campus need each year to operate? How does this compare with local food production? What are the easy aspects of transitioning to a permacultured college food system?
Design. As you begin your design work, incorporate permaculture principles such as succession, and “slow and small solutions.”
If you start small, what is the first thing you would do to move your campus food system in the direction of a whole systems plan? If that were successful, what would be the next thing to do? The third?
Start with things that students can do on their own, without any need for permission or resources from the school.
Eat with the season. Eating with the season is a food security principle that applies in campus dining halls just like anyplace else. Skip the salad bar and its imported greens during the winter — unless your school is raising its own salad greens in solar heated greenhouses fertilized with compost from the cafeteria kitchens.
Go local! When you eat out — and college students eat out and buy take out all the time — support locally owned restaurants and fast food locations! Stay away from the franchised national brands. This will get you allies in the local business community and that’s good. One of your first campaigns should be “Support your local café.”
Buy some food from local farmers. College students living in dorms buy food all the time even if they have meal cards to eat at on-campus cafeterias. Find out where your local farmers’ markets are and buy some local food. Chances are good you will find people selling locally made cookies, granolas, breads, and other fun and tasty foods to bring home to stock your dorm room snack bin.
Store some food. You are probably not going to get your school to go all-in for food storage (unless perhaps you are a student at Brigham Young University . . . which probably already has food storage). You could keep some extra shelf-stable food in your dorm room, both for late night snacking and for emergency use if the system gets suddenly stressed. Food storage items for college students could be jerky, meat sticks, nuts, dried fruit, granola, Ramen noodle packages. See the list at the end of chapter 02291 “One Month of Food in a Computer Box.”
Once you have picked all the low-hanging fruit, move on to more difficult challenges. One of the most important aspects of college food security is for your campus food system to build relationships with local producers.
Start with ground beef. While it’s important for institutions to source food from the local area, the reality in many areas is that your school may not be able to find enough local production to feed its students. The one locally produced food item that is likely to be available in large enough quantities to feed a campus in most areas is ground beef. If not immediately available, production of locally grown ground beef can be ramped up quickly. A focus on ground meat is one of the more important things we can do for the food system. Locally grown ground meats, sourced from free ranging herds of cattle, do not produce the extensive climate-forcing emissions that are a problem with feedlot (confined animal feeding operation) cattle. You should inquire about your school’s existing choices for ground beef, since many institutions buy ground meat that includes the infamous “pink slime” ingredient — so-called lean finely textured beef, made from bits of gristle and sinew and other mechanically separated beef parts, and then drenched with ammonia to kill bacteria. By law, it can be as much as 15% of ground beef and the manufacturer does not have to disclose its presence in the product.
Food Service Composting. As part of your dialogue with the school, get your campus food service on board with composting. At Saginaw Valley State University, their campus environmental organization, with the assistance of sympathetic faculty members, started a project growing salad greens. Food waste from the cafeteria was sent to the greenhouses, where it was fed to worms. The worm tea and castings grew salad greens for eating in the cafeteria. It wasn’t a completely closed system. It was a great first effort. The greenhouses produced greens in the middle of the Michigan winter.
Research projects. Connect your efforts with the research projects of campus faculty or propose new research projects to faculty that your organization can help with. Professors often must do research as part of their job. To find a bunch of enthusiastic students proposing to help with interesting and useful research will be welcome. It stacks another function on your projects and the more beneficial functions stacked on these kinds of efforts, the more likely it will be that the administration will sign off on the deal.
Grow some food on campus. Persons living in dormitories can start permaculture clubs that could get permission to start demonstration gardens on campus. Schools could be encouraged to raise some or all of the food they serve in their cafeterias. A college food system that sourced most of its food supply from its own farms would be enormously popular with students and parents and could give that school a competitive edge in the race to attract more students. In the meantime, if you have a sunny window, practice by growing a tomato plant, or some other vegetable or herb plant that you like, in a container. Maybe there could be a contest among the campus fraternities and sororities for the best edible landscaping projects.
Bottom Line Deal: Make your food preferences loudly and unambiguously and persistently known to your campus administration. Do not be shy about making your food preferences known to the cafeteria management and to responsible school officials. Always make such requests in writing and ask for an in-person meeting. A certain amount of publicity will benefit this process.
A permacultured food system does not spring into being overnight. It comes about one step at a time as students, faculty, alumni, and other community stakeholders establish goals and work through the processes necessary to achieve those goals. The result is tasty and nutritious food that cares for people, cares for the planet, and has a care for the future.
A plan like this will be a lot of work, so you need friends. Start your campus permaculture organization and then run with the food system design plan project. You could maybe have a weekend workshop, and invite local permaculture designers to do a design solution on the issue with you.
Always think big, but not grandiose. In other words, permaculturing a college food system is a big plan. You may not complete it during your time at that school. If you do a good job with your organization, it will continue on and persistently work on the design. Always design for small incremental steps. Be on the lookout for the big scores too.