Visitors tour the Central Maryland Research and Education Center in Upper Marlboro, the site of a planned sustainable food project.
Starting in the fall, Dining Services will supply some campus food venues with fresh produce from Terp Farm, a new project coming to the Central Maryland Research and Education Center, about 15 miles from the campus.
The initiative, a collaboration between Dining Services, the Office of Sustainability and the agricultural college, received a $124,400 grant from the university’s Sustainability Fund to start and pilot the program for three years, Mark Stewart, sustainability office senior project manager, wrote in an email.
“Terp Farm received unanimous support from the Student Advisory Subcommittee and the University Sustainability Council,” he wrote. “Everyone was delighted to see this partnership … to develop a farm that will produce vegetables, fruits, and herbs for our own dining halls.”
During the pilot period, Dining Services’ goal is for the 2-acre plot in Upper Marlboro to provide produce not only for campus food venues but also for those who are food-insecure on the campus and in the surrounding community, said Allison Lilly, Dining Services sustainability and wellness coordinator.
“We really want this project to help everyone, even outside the dining halls,” she said.
Officials plan to use the produce in some dining hall kiosks and in the Green Tidings food truck.
The farm is an initiative stemming from Dining Services’ 2012 Sustainable Food Commitment, in which the university pledged to increase sustainable food in on-campus dining sites from 10 to 20 percent by 2020.
More than 12 percent of Dining Services’ 2012 budget went toward providing sustainable food in campus dining halls, according to a 2013 university sustainability report, and officials look forward to this program’s potential impact.
“We are indeed committed to providing food for the campus that meets sustainability criteria,” Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple said. “You can’t get much more sustainable than a very, very local farm where the labor is provided by people of this campus.”
Labor will come from students in various agriculture-related courses, an agricultural technician who will work full-time at the farm and other volunteers, Lilly said. This technician has yet to be hired.
Students said they appreciate this project because it will provide better-tasting, healthier food options while educating people about the social value of the food they eat.
“I think it’s so important to teach people, especially when they’re young, about sustainable food,” said Kelsey Sutton, a junior English and journalism major. “Eating food isn’t just about nutrition but where it’s coming from.”
Officials aim for Terp Farm to be a teaching tool as well as a food supply.
Students in the Institute of Applied Agriculture and other agriculture-related departments, such as plant sciences and landscape architecture, have been working with officials on the farm’s budget and other plans, said professors Chris Walsh and Meredith Epstein.
A group of Walsh’s senior students are working out the details of the farm’s crop rotation schedule and other logistics for their capstone projects, he said.
“I think it’s a really good situation for education as well as the sustainability initiative,” said Walsh, a horticulture professor.
Students currently study the agriculture industry by taking field trips to local farms, such as Larriland Farm in Woodbine. With Terp Farm, classes will travel to the site each week for labs.
“It’s really exciting for us to have a sustainable farm we can teach on,” said Epstein, who teaches sustainable agriculture classes for the Institute of Applied Agriculture. “I think that on-farm training in a formalized accredited university setting is really lacking in the mid-Atlantic.”
Students will have the opportunity to work on the farm doing harvesting, production, packaging and other procedures during the academic year. Officials are looking into volunteer opportunities for other interested students.
“As we move the project forward, we’re looking to be able to get as many students involved as possible,” Lilly said. “Every part of this project is invigorating and everyone that we’ve talked to about it is really excited to get involved.”
Nikki Waxman, a sophomore government and politics major, is among many students who look forward to a rise in awareness about sustainable food stemming from this project.
“It seems like a really cool sustainability initiative that will help to lessen the environmental impact of our campus,” Waxman said.
Students will provide the labor, and the land has been provided by the Upper Marlboro facility of the Central Maryland Research and Education Center, which the agriculture college runs. The facility set aside the land exclusively for the pilot project, Lilly said.
As students continue to work out the details of the program, many developments remain uncertain leading up to the fall kick-off.
“A lot of it is still tentative; a lot of it is still in the forming process, but it’s a really great thing,” Hipple said. “We’re excited about the opportunity to have access to food that is this local and that is this much of a participation and collaboration with this university.”
