News Release
June 26, 2007

Story contact: Rik Smith, riksmith@uwyo.edu

UW student farm furthers student education, community outreach

An idea sown last year for a student farm at UW came to fruition this spring with vegetable plants popping through the ground near the University of Wyoming’s greenhouse.

The vegetable growing effort is an outreach to the community and helps further education of students in the agroecology program in the College of Agriculture, said Michael Baldwin, a junior majoring in agroecology from Fairfax, Va., and vice president of Agricultural Community Resources for Everyday Sustainability (ACRES. The first planting gets the project off the ground.

Outreach efforts will include providing vegetables to needy UW students and the community, teaching children about the food industry, and furthering the education of students in the agroecology program who might not have an agriculture background, said Baldwin.

The one-third acre vegetable plot also shows the viability of sustainable agriculture, he said. “Farming is a diminishing entity. The small farms are pushed out by the corporate farms,” he said. “Sustainable farming on a small plot of land shows the viability it can continue.”

The idea sprouted in a conversation between Mary Huerter, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in agroecology, and Rik Smith, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences and the group’s adviser. Huerter researched other student agriculture projects around the country last fall, but the idea took root when she was introduced to Alyssa Wechsler of Laramie, a zoology and physiology/environment and natural resources student, who had asked Smith questions about sustainable agriculture for a class project.

“We realized it was something of a shot in the dark,” said Huerter, who is president of ACRES, “but believed drafting the proposal would help us solidify our daydreams about the project as well as define our limitations.”

Meanwhile, land near the greenhouse was approved for use by Stephen D. Miller, director of the Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station and associate dean in the college.

A seminar this spring showed students wanted to make the project happen, said Huerter.

“When other students started showing up at my office with an interest in this kind of endeavor, it just seemed logical to offer a seminar to look into the feasibility of a student farm here at UW,” said Smith. “Within a short time, it was clear students wanted to go further and try to get this thing producing this summer.”

Students producing food is a major driver of the effort, said Smith. “I also think it’s what has gotten them charged up. Here they have an opportunity to get their hands dirty and apply what they’ve learned in our agroecology and plant sciences classes.”

The vegetable growing is more than just a project for Emmanuel Omondi of Kenya, in East Africa, a master’s student in agroecology and director of a sustainable farming project in his hometown of Kitale in western Kenya.

“From my standpoint, what they are trying to do here is more than exploratory,” said Omondi. “People are dying from hunger in my country. Ideas such as this one are what many small-scale farmers in Kenya are surviving on, literally. Small-scale farming drives the community. At home, community is everything, as people must learn to pool their resources to survive. Outreach involves reaching out to more communities and sharing with them alternative ways to grow their own food locally, and encouraging them to be less dependent on food grown elsewhere, which, in most cases, is more expensive than what they can grow themselves.”

He will assist in areas in which he believes he can help. He also hopes this initiative can partner and/or collaborate more proactively with his project in Kenya. 

Baldwin and Omondi, with Smith, have tended the vegetable plot.

Community involvement helps spread the word about eating locally to the Laramie community, said Huerter.

Members of a prospective food co-op in Laramie always mention being able to buy locally produced food – much more than buying organically grown food, said Smith. “Eating good foods grown locally has become a major interest to a lot of people, even here in Laramie,” he said. “The student farm can help meet some of those desires for local foods and probably play a role in encouraging others to get into the business.”

Smith said several people in and around Laramie have expressed interest in their own vegetable farm and are either in the planning or early implementation stage.

“We can support that in a number of ways – demonstrations, information sharing and the infectious enthusiasm the college students bring to the student farm,” he said.

Community members also provide experience and continuity to the project.

Various groups, including local greenhouses, have donated seeds to boost the project. Windmill Hill Greenhouse in Laramie donated more than $365 in seed, said Baldwin, and businesses outside Wyoming have also contributed.

Vegetables being raised include potatoes, onions, beans, lettuce, shallots, broccoli, radishes, cucumbers, carrots and squash.

The group plans to sell vegetables at the Laramie Farmers’ Market, and Huerter would like to find a way to fund two student positions at the farm next summer.

“I hope that next summer we can begin to get moving in a more educational direction, hosting workshops, tours and field trips for anyone who is interested,” she said.

Contact: Steven L. Miller, Senior Editor
Phone: (307) 766-6342
E-mail: slmiller@uwyo.edu
Archived News Site http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/UWAG/news.asp

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