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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Farmers markets' new harvest: campus customers
  • Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:56:09 -0700


Farmers markets' new harvest: campus customers
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-collegemarkets4-2009mar04,0,18225

24.story
By Mary MacVean
March 4, 2009


SNACK TIME: Farmers markets are appearing on many campuses, including USC.
The events promote a sense of an eco-friendly community.
Students find fresh fruits and vegetables without a trek to the store, and
growers tap an eager market of buyers.

A growing number of colleges are finding that campus farmers markets are a
great fit, tapping into students' interest in sustaining the planet with an
appealing combination of food, music and lots of people hanging out.

The idea is to be "better environmental stewards, to put a focus on where
our food comes from, who grows it, how it gets to our plates," said Kevin
Chang, a student leader of the Trojan Fresh Market, a monthly market of
farm foods and other products on McCarthy Quad at USC.

At a recent market, the choices included fruit (Asian pears, Satsuma
tangerines, apples), vegetables (multiple colors of carrots, potatoes,
squash), flowers, bread and cheese. There were plenty of dorm-friendly
choices: dried fruit and trail mix, dips and cookies. More than 2,000
shoppers showed up, said Scott Shuttleworth, the university's director of
hospitality. The January market added a student jazz quartet.

USC held its first market in February 2008, the result of meetings between
students and university officials that began in fall 2007, Chang said.

The idea for a market had also occurred to Shuttleworth. USC is attentive
to sustainable practices such as recycling, and the market provides a
responsible, easy way for students, faculty and staff to buy food at a
place that also promotes a sense of community, he said.

"It's really convenient to have good food, local food, here," said Marissa
Ritchen, a freshman from Denver who was buying a pomegranate and a
container of organic hummus at the November market. "It's kind of what I am
used to."

Chang, who begins medical school at the University of Washington in the
fall, said that because many students live in dorms without kitchens, it is
important to offer bread, cheese and other foods that don't require
cooking. Another issue has been convincing farmers that the market would be
lucrative enough for them to spend time on campus, Chang and Shuttleworth
said.

To address that, USC adjusted the usual farmers market model: The
university buys the products from such farms as McGrath Family Farms in
Camarillo and Santa Barbara Pistachio Co. and sets up the stands on the
quad. The market accepts university dining cards as well as cash, and the
university's dining services operation takes any leftover food.

At the November market, John Kiddie of Nojoqui Farms in Lompoc, was invited
to campus to talk to shoppers. "I was very pleased to see that the students
were interested and want better food," he said later. His farm normally
sells its wide variety of produce mostly to natural-foods distributors.

A teachable market

Shuttleworth said that having at least one farmer at the market was
important to give shoppers a chance to talk with someone about
"eco-friendly agriculture and organic and natural farming practices."

"It's part of being true to the spirit of farmers markets," he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn't keep count of college farmers
markets, said Debra Tropp of the agency's Agricultural Marketing Service.
But she said she believes there are not many -- yet. Markets also are being
held at hospitals. Kaiser Permanente has 28 in six states; like colleges,
they are places where the institution and the vendors have philosophical
connections.

"In my mind, there are two incredibly big, awesome components" to campus
farmers markets, said Kathryn Andersen, a founder of the Princeton
University market, which opened in 2007 and is run by students.

The first is that students at the market can meet faculty and staff, and
with coffee for sale and student musicians performing, people stick around.
The second, she said by telephone from Italy, where she was on a Fulbright
scholarship, is having an on-campus connection to agriculture.

"Students can really understand where their food comes from," said
Andersen, who grew up on a Pennsylvania farm and started a market with her
family. "You can ask questions that you can't ask in a grocery store. What
type of apples are these? . . . Why would I want to eat a Stayman Winesap
rather than a Pearmain?"

Among other colleges with markets are UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and UC San
Diego, as well as Stanford, Harvard, Brown, Portland State, the University
of Minnesota, the University of Maine and the University of Arizona. Some
markets are run by outside organizations, some with a combination of on-
and off-campus sponsors.

At UC Davis, a campus book project inspired the farmers market. A committee
planning events around a group reading of Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's
Dilemma" proposed the market. Funding from a Department of Agriculture
grant and support from several campus groups, including health and dining
services, led to the opening of a market on the East Quad in 2006, said
Laura Rubin, a health educator in student health services. It now runs
Wednesdays in the fall and spring quarters.

"The idea is really to change the environment around what foods are
available," Rubin said, citing surveys in 2005 and 2007 showing that more
than half the UC Davis students ate two or fewer servings a day of fruits
and vegetables. "Before the market, it wasn't very easy, necessarily, for
students to choose to eat healthy on campus."

Shoppers at Cal Poly Pomona can choose locally grown produce every day. The
Farm Store, across from the main campus, sells produce, eggs and meat
produced at the school's College of Agriculture, as well as other products
in a 25,000-square-foot store, said Dawn Taccone, Farm Store manager. In
addition, students from the university sell produce at farmers markets,
including weekly in Irvine. And the school has a fall pumpkin patch and
you-pick strawberries.

mary.macvean@latimes.com







  • [Livingontheland] Farmers markets' new harvest: campus customers, Tradingpost, 03/07/2009

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