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Permaculture Committee dubbed ‘Pioneers’

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The University of Massachusetts Permaculture Committee was recently awarded the first annual Real Food Award by Real Food Challenge [RFC], an organization based in Boston aimed at promoting “real food” amongst college and university campuses, according to University a press release.

Jeff Bernstein/Collegian

Jeff Bernstein/Collegian

The award highlights accomplishments by individuals or student groups who are leading the RFC movement and improving the amount of “real food” purchased on campus, according to RFC’s website.

“Real food,” according to the website, can be divided into four categories – local, fair, ecologically sound and humane. Real food is then broken down into two subcategories: Real food A and Real food B. The former must have at least two of the four attributes and Real food B is anything that only has one, according to the website.

RFC hopes to shift $1 billion that universities and colleges currently spend each year on industrial food towards locally based agriculture, grown under ecologically sound conditions and meeting the requirements of real food, according to the press release.

Students from across the nation submitted their nominees for the Real Food Award on RFC’s website this past fall. Over 100 nominations were submitted, which was chiseled down to 19 finalists. Over 2,000 votes and comments were reviewed by RFC students and staff, who then picked a winner based on the feedback, according to the release.

The UMass Permaculture Committee received the most votes and its members were recognized as Permaculture Pioneers by RFC for their innovative work on one of the nation’s first student-led permaculture gardens, according to the release.

The 12-member UMass Permaculture Committee was started as a project for a class taught by UMass professor of plant, soil and inset sciences John Gerber. The sustainability-minded class introduced the students to a concept called permaculture, which was the inspiration for their project.

Drawing inspiration from nature, permaculturists strive to take advantage of the given environment. It is possible in any climate under any conditions. The idea of permaculture is to self-sustain for an indefinite period of time, according to regenerativedesign.org

The students eventually came up with an idea, which they proposed to Executive Director of Auxiliary Services Ken Toong. Toong said he recognized the potential in the students’ idea and gave the approval needed to go forward with the project.

Rachel Dutton, a 2011 UMass graduate and is a former member of the UMass Permaculture Committee, still works with the group as the sustainability coordinator at auxiliary services.

“The way it works, especially when you work with perennial plants like we are, is over time as the gardens develop and mature the amount of produce you create increases tremendously,” said Dutton. “In the first year we were able to supply 1,000 pounds of produce in just that one plot in front of Franklin.”

Since its establishment in 2010, the committee has been recognized for two national awards, including the 2012 NASPA Excellence Award. The group has recently begun phase one of a three-step process to transform a designated patch of dirt located in between Berkshire Dining Commons, the Southwest horseshoe and Hamden convenience store into a self-sustaining haven of agriculture, according to its website.

The three-step process is the same approach that has proven successful with the Franklin and Worcester gardens, the first two projects of the group. It begins with a process called sheet mulching, which loosens up tight, depleted soil and allows water and nutrients to absorb into the earth through freshly layered compost, cardboard and wood-chips. This process reduces labor and maintenance costs, as well as enhances soil structure and improves future plant health, according to stopwaste.org

The second phase, which is where the committee currently stands, is the design phase. After collecting samples of soil from the garden, the group is beginning to develop a design that will allow the garden to flourish under the given conditions and benefit the campus most effectively, according to the website.

The planting phase will begin on April 23. The group plans on mostly perennial plants for the new garden, which are self-sustaining and bloom every year, although it is too early for the specifics.

Summer is the busiest season, according to Dutton, and people are needed to maintain the garden throughout the hot, threatening months. Dutton said it is crucial to ensure crops remain healthy until next fall, when she expects they will begin harvesting.

Josh Steinberg can be reached at jssteinb@student.umass.edu.


Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy signs the Real Food Challenge as part of Campus Sustainability Day

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University of Massachusetts Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy signed the “Real Food Challenge” at a public event on Wednesday evening, committing the campus to serve 20 percent local, sustainable or fair-trade food by 2020.

Maria Uminski/ Collegian

UMass is now the largest institution to sign onto the Real Food Challenge, a nationwide campaign to shift $1 billion of existing university food budgets away from industrial farms and towards local and humane food sources.

“Our commitment to sustainability, originating in our agricultural heritage, is a long-standing priority at UMass Amherst, putting us at the forefront of the green campus movement,” Subbaswamy said in a speech before the signing.

The signing was held in the Student Union Ballroom and was the last of a series of events celebrating the University’s third annual Campus Sustainability Day.

The day kicked off in the Earthfoods Café with a panel featuring UMass alumni now working in the green jobs industry. A student sustainability fair and “real food” tasting followed in the Student Union Ballroom, which featured interactive table displays by student organizations and a sampling of local food. The University’s oldest acapella group, “Vocal Suspects,” also performed at the event.

Subbaswamy praised the campus for its continued efforts and success in sustainability, on both an institutional and academic level. The University now offers some 300 academic courses related to sustainability, he said.

“Sustainability is a core value of this institution,” he said. “Our exemplary leadership in sustainability provides a model for universities across the country.”

Last spring, a two-credit internship with the Real Food Challenge was established at the University. Over the course of a semester, students learn to run the “Real Food Calculator.” This involves going through UMass Dining invoices and researching companies to determine what percentage of “real food” the University is purchasing.

“The best thing about this campaign is that it’s something everyone can connect to,” said senior Joanna Benoit, one of 10 Real Food Interns this semester.

Director of Auxiliary Enterprises Ken Toong, said during a speech at the signing, that the University is setting an example for New England campuses to follow. The more that sign on, the more accessible “real food” will be for everyone, he said.

“We have a very ambitious and clear goal—to purchase 20 percent real food well before 2020,” said Toong.

Other speakers included Drew Love, northeast assistant regional coordinator for the Real Food Challenge, Victoria Rosen, communications manager for sustainability at UMass, and three students who have played a key role in bringing the Real Food Challenge to the University – Sara Hopps, Molly Bajgot and Lila Grallert. Each talked about their own experience being unhappy with the status quo, and how they were able to make a change and get the campaign off the ground.

“All of us chose to reject the idea that our voices couldn’t result in change,” said Grallert. She added that the University’s support means more than just a commitment to 20 percent real food. “It represents this University’s commitment to listening to its students,” she said. “Now all we have left to do is grow.”

Subbaswamy said one pet peeve he still has is the amount of paper that’s wasted every day in the school’s administrative building, and urged students and faculty to go paperless. He said that Campus Sustainability Day is not only about celebrating the University’s successes, but also about exploring the opportunity to do more.

“The actions we take today and tomorrow will have an effect for generations to come,” he said.

Aviva Luttrell can be reached at aluttrel@umass.edu.

Real Food Town Hall hosted by UMass Real Food Challenge on Thursday

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(www.uvm.edu)

(www.uvm.edu)

Around 70 University of Massachusetts students, faculty and members of the community gathered in Amherst town hall on Thursday to share their ideas and visions for the role of UMass in supporting a more sustainable and fair food system.

Members of the UMass Real Food Challenge hosted the Real Food Town Hall. Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and Ken Toong, the executive director of Auxiliary Enterprises, signed the Real Food Campus Commitment in October 2013. This commitment promises to shift 20 percent of the University’s food purchasing to real food – food that truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the Earth – by the year 2020.

According to the Real Food Challenge website, this is a nationwide campaign to shift one billion dollars of existing food budgets in universities across America away from the industrial farming towards local and humane food sources.

UMass is currently the largest university in America to take the Real Food Challenge. Members are in the process of creating an official food policy as part of the Real Food Campus Commitment, and the Real Food Town Hall meeting was the first step in the creation of the policy.

The meeting began around a large painted wheel on the floor of the conference room. The wheel featured the phrase “What is Real Food?” The center of the wheel read “food that truly nourishes.” There were four sections outlined in this wheel – producers, the earth, communities and consumers. Individuals around the wheel read off different parts of each section. There was a discussion of the wheel, and people made suggestions about adding new topics to the wheel.

The meeting was then broken up into small group sessions where individuals were asked to move towards the section of the wheel where they felt they belonged. Members of the Real Food Challenge facilitated conversations in these smaller groups. Each group gave ideas and opinions about what they would like to see come from the new food policy.

The meeting was mainly attended by UMass students. Members of the Real Food Challenge as well as food service workers, student activists and volunteers were present. Many of them had majors like sustainable farming, food science, nutrition and biology.

Rachel Fahey, a biology major, got involved with the Real Food Challenge because she felt it was a “good thing to put time and energy into.”

There were also those like Mary Mackie, a graduate student and volunteer at the All Things Local co-op, who attended the meeting to learn more about the Real Food Challenge. Members of the community, local farmers, small business owners, teachers, parents and UMass faculty were also present.

Meg Little works as a sustainability coordinator for UMass Auxiliary, and said the commitment to real food is a huge priority for the school and believes the Real Food Challenge goal is entirely possible.

Chris Felton, who works in civic engagement and service learning, came to the meeting to support her students who are involved with the Real Food Challenge. She said that she is, “Lucky to be able to learn through students and see real change as a result of it on campus.”

Members of UMass Real Food Challenge will take the ideas and visions presented at the meeting and use them to draft their food policy. They plan on holding a meeting in the future to gather input on this draft.

Kathleen Kirk can be reached at klkirk@umass.edu.

UMass students attend nationwide Real Food Challenge conference

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(Photo courtesy of Patricia Murphy)

(Photo courtesy of Patricia Murphy)

Five students from the University of Massachusetts joined a nationwide group of students at Bard College in Dutchess County, New York to participate in the Real Food Challenge retreat over Presidents’ Day weekend.

Here, they worked on strategizing, community building and organizing in order to strengthen the University’s Real Food Challenge campaign, which promotes a “healthy, fair and green food system,” according to its website.

Out of the 16 universities in attendance, UMass was the only school that had an official campaign commitment. The students focused specifically on networking and brainstorming ideas for putting the University’s Real Food Challenge campaign commitment into action.

The Real Food Challenge began as a nationwide campaign for students to reform the current food systems existing at their universities. It defines real food as “food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth. It is a food system –from seed to plate – that fundamentally respects human dignity and health, animal welfare, social justice and environmental sustainability.”

According to its website, schools can meet the challenge’s goal by shifting $1 billion of existing university food budgets away from industrial farms and toward local and community based, fair trade, ecologically sound and humane food sources by 2020.

Youth involvement and social justice are highly important aspects of the Real Food Challenge. Olivia Biller, a Hampshire College student who participated in the conference at Bard College, said she believes that the Real Food Challenge is a prime example of student empowerment.

“Attending this retreat opened my eyes to the fact that student communities hold the political power necessary to transform higher education while dismantling food system inequities,” Biller said. “Food can be a strategic vehicle for students to address the racist, classist and gendered hierarchies built into our schools and dining services.”

According to Biller, students at the conference studied the methods employed by other famous activist groups to influence how they would strengthen their campus’ campaigns.

“For inspiration, we can look to institutional divestment from South Africa to end apartheid, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the civil rights movement and the contemporary Student Farmworker Alliance that pushes for improved wages as well as conditions for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida,” Biller said.

UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy signed the Real Food Challenge in 2013. Since then, several changes have occurred on campus, including more local food options being offered at certain dining halls. The UMass Sustainability website lists UMass as the largest participating university in America, serving approximately 45,000 meals per day.

“Having the commitment signed, we are not only working with creating shifts within the system and bringing new products into the dining halls, but are working on education and awareness, as well as student involvement,” said Patricia Murphy, a UMass sophomore who is currently active in the Real Food Campaign.

One of the easiest ways to get involved as a student, according to Murphy, is to join the student group, which holds weekly meetings in the Student Union room 423a on Thursdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Another way is to apply to become a member of the Food System’s Working Group, which works directly with Auxiliary services in order to create food policies and plans on campus, as well as outreach to local farmers.

Brooke Parziale can be reached at bcparziale@umass.edu.

UMass Real Food Challenge overcomes obstacles to institute change

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Marielle Fibish/ Flickr

Marielle Fibish/ Flickr

True to its name, the University of Massachusetts’ Real Food Challenge has faced a lot of obstacles during its relatively short, but successful, life on campus.

The main goal of Real Food Challenge, an organization made up of students, faculty and UMass Dining staff, is to create a more just food system, which means purchasing more locally grown, humanely raised, ecologically sound and fair trade-certified food products.

Members of Real Food Challenge care deeply about humane food services, both on campus and worldwide.

Drew Fournier, a junior who has been involved with the organization since his freshman year, said the two “central hurdles” have been cooperating with UMass Dining and being representative of what the student body wants.

He also said UMass Dining and the student body have two vastly different views on the food system. Real Food Challenge tries its best to bridge those perspectives.

The organization must align UMass Dining’s values as a business with student ideals. Fournier said this balance is hard. In the end, they need to make the decisions that will make the most economic sense for UMass Dining in the long run.

Since most on-campus residents have some type of meal plan, students have the right to decide what foods the dining services are sourcing, Fournier said.

UMass has the second largest university dining program in the country, and does not outsource its food, which most schools its size do. Outsourcing means having another company provide the food for campus consumers, which typically serve other customers like prisons, amusement parks, hospitals and K-12 schools.

Because UMass does not outsource, Hannah Weinrock, a recent UMass graduate and Real Food Challenge member who has worked with UMass Dining, said the school has fewer barriers.

UMass Dining is economically dependent on the tens of thousands of UMass community members when school is in session. Students are crucial in contributing to the Pioneer Valley food market, and sourcing local food directly impacts local farmers’ livelihoods and keeps the area’s economy strong.

Weinrock said the entire process is strategic publicity for UMass Dining because it follows a national trend of other schools sourcing their food locally.

It is important to remember, Fournier said, that UMass Dining wants to maintain a good reputation. Therefore, to stay “on top of the game,” it looks for trends in the student body and competing institutions. If students communicate with Dining Services about the kind of food system that they like, it will listen, Fournier said.

He said that the Real Food Challenge considers purchasing decisions, kinds of food supported, food transportation methods to campus, and who comes in physical contact with the food.

Fournier also said that Real Food Challenge could do a better job at attracting voices into spaces that best represent the campus community, and getting more diverse perspectives into their vision of the food system.

A new goal of the Real Food Challenge is engaging a wider audience on campus and increasing student awareness about their mission, he added.

Weinrock said, “That’s where a lot of the tension often lies: we are students, we care about these things – especially in interacting with Dining, we are often in conversations that are about purchasing contracts and about things that very much should be public and should be things that all students should have access to. So, one of the things we are constantly pushing for, and one of the things we are working to do, is to bring those conversations to students.”

Making change

The Real Food Challenge was introduced to UMass in January 2012. After a presentation by a regional team, a small group of students, with faculty and the Chancellor’s Sustainability Committee, began exploring the possibility of making the Real Food Campus Commitment, which Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy signed in spring 2013.

At UMass, the organization is comprised of two sub-organizations: the Food Systems Working Group, made up of students, staff and faculty members, and Real Food Collective, the registered student organization.

The Real Food Collective, a branch of the Real Food Challenge, focuses on student engagement and education on real food.

Fournier said he has seen change since he joined two years ago. Measures that UMass committed to, like creating spaces where diverse members of the food system can come in and influence the way that we shape our food system on campus, are finally being implemented.

Before, when Fournier started, things were very exploratory. Focus was on gaining more student involvement and signing the commitment. Now, they are focused on institutionalizing the campaign and developing the mutually respectful relationship with Dining Services that will subsequently make beneficial food shifts.

They are also expanding dialogue. Last fall, the Real Food Challenge hosted a town hall meeting in Amherst to discuss food policy. Seventy-five students and community members showed up to talk about what they wanted. Weinrock compared the dialogue to a conversation full of different languages: there were purchasing logistics and “things that went over my head.”

Jess Newton, who joined Real Food Challenge last fall, believes the biggest obstacle has been getting support from the University. Because the organization consists of busy college students, it is hard to keep momentum.

One of the biggest contributions of Real Food Challenge has been implementing the University’s commitment, which aims to shift 20 percent of the food UMass purchases to “real food” by the year 2020.

“Real food” sustains all those involved with the process of getting the food from the ground to the table.

The commitment requires UMass uses the Real Food Calculator, which can be found on the national Real Food Challenge website, to decide whether a food provider actually supplies “real food” and thus audit whether the school’s purchases meet this 20 percent.

“For various reasons, we haven’t run the calculator in the past year, but it’s starting up again this fall,” Weinrock said. These reasons are confidential, she said.

When they do run the calculator, which will either be this semester or the next, changes due to the implementation will be apparent.

The commitment also passed the Real Food Policy, which guides the University’s procurement of “real food.”

Real Food Collective student representative Maria Fallavollita said the plan also includes annual progress reports, which can be accessed online, that relate the shifts necessary for the commitment. However, the progress reports will probably not happen for another year.

“All of this is kind of coming into formation,” she said.

UMass is the largest school that has signed the commitment, being one of over 60 nationwide over the past several years.

Working with UMass Dining

Fallavollita, who plans on attending Food Systems Working Group meetings this semester, said the relationship with UMass Dining requires “finding the balance between pushing and knowing when not to push too hard.”

“This is something we can only accomplish working with Dining,” Weinrock said.

The Food Systems Working Group, which formed in the spring of 2015, focuses on overseeing the implementation of the commitment and maintaining inter-community contact with UMass Dining and stakeholders.

Weinrock called Food Systems Working Group a “huge step” to change and said faculty has been very supportive since the commitment was signed. They sit in on Food Systems Working Group meetings, offer credit to students (Weinrock has gotten academic credit all six semesters she has worked for the Real Food Challenge), and help host events.

Weinrock, a public health major interested in a career in food justice, said working with UMass Dining has been a “big learning curve” full of “trial and error.”

“As with anything, there are different bottom lines sometimes,” Weinrock said. “It’s not always easy.”

Among the changes already made due to the commitment, UMass Dining has switched to sourcing local foods like honey, milk, granola from an organic company in Maine called Grandy Oats, and produce such as apples.

Though sourcing local produce can be hard at the volume UMass needs, Weinrock said, it is still easier than sourcing things like local fish or meat.

UMass Dining eventually wants fish from local, community-based fishermen because they work closely with organizations that support local fisheries in New England. It also wants to source local and humane meat on campus, though there is not an accessible or affordable supply, nor are there many local humane slaughterhouses in the area.

Weinrock said this illustrates an interesting balance between change that student members propose to UMass Dining, and the initiatives and challenges that UMass Dining has itself. Some of the conversations deal with large-scale changes, sometimes considering changes in the regional food system.

Weinrock said over the past five years or so, there has been a significant push for active, just and sustainable food on campus. Some changes are certainly attributable to the commitment, while some are attributable to other similar movements. These include unrelated, outside grants that are a result of the ripple effect conversations started by Real Food Challenge.

However, Weinrock said, all of it is due to a growing interest of students to see and make a difference on campus.

Fournier and Weinrock agreed it is hard to say how much of UMass Dining’s current endeavors are a direct result of the Real Food Challenge.

“I don’t think there’s any way to know necessarily exactly what caused it, but Real Food Challenge had a significant role in instigating a lot of the conversations that have happened since then,” Weinrock said.

The organization is a chapter of a larger, national campaign. They had a recent weekend retreat where national leaders of the organization visited campus. UMass’ chapter hosts a couple of these leaders, recent college graduates who were either in Real Food campaigns as students or currently have food justice-related careers, about once a semester.

UMass’ chapter of Real Food Challenge is the only organization on campus with its position and tactics, Fournier said. There are similar registered student organizations like the Student Labor Action Project, who focus primarily on labor in the food system. But Real Food Challenge has a more holistic view on the ideal food system than other campus organizations.

Sarah Gamard can be reached at sgamard@umass.edu.

SGA president selects new vice president

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Collegian File Photo

(Collegian File Photo)

Student Government Association president Anthony Vitale hired Lily Wallace, senior political science and BDIC major, as his vice president on Dec. 20, filling a vacancy left by former vice president Nick Rampone.

Wallace currently serves as acting vice president of the SGA. She will speak in front of the Senate on Jan. 30 to be officially confirmed as vice president. In her new role, she will serve as Vitale’s chief advisor. She will also be the mediator to the University’s area governments.

She was hired as the undersecretary of university policy last year and also worked as the front desk manager at the SGA office.

“Lily is extremely qualified for this position and has terrific plans for our organization,” Vitale wrote in an email sent by the SGA.

After Rampone resigned to study abroad in Shanghai, China, an application was made available to all UMass students. Eight students applied and were interviewed by Vitale. A hiring committee made up of senior members of the SGA reviewed each application and assisted Vitale in choosing an appointee.

Wallace said she applied for the position because she wants to help create policies that affect campus life.

“Being a political science major, I’m really interested in policy,” she stated. “What’s really going to help students down the line is institutionalized policy.”

Wallace said her main goal of this semester is to work with registered student organizations to build relationships and ensure that no organization feels isolated.

Wallace worked as a DJ trainer and a radio host at WMUA. She said she understands that some organizations may feel isolated from the SGA, so she is excited to reach out to organizations to better understand their needs.

She said her work with different student groups on campus was a reason she was chosen for the position. Aside from working with WMUA, she works for the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, which seeks to “foster an informed, caring and supportive campus community for students of all backgrounds and beliefs,” according to its web page.

Wallace also works with the Real Food Challenge, which calls for 20 percent of the University’s food to be from local, economic and humane food sources by 2020.

She believes her work on campus diversity was another major contributor in Vitale’s decision to hire her.

“I think it’s important to support our fellow students in creating a campus climate that supports compassion and understanding,” she said.

Wallace, along with other students, helped create the UMass Interfaith Alliance, which plans social events to connect students to a religiously diverse group of people.

For the past three years she has been a resident assistant for Crampton Hall’s Nuance: Multicultural Student Program, which “strives to give its residents an insight into current issues of social justice and diversity,” according to the building’s web page.

She also wants to address LGBTQIA issues, like adding more gender neutral bathrooms on campus.

Wallace said her work in civic engagement will help her become an effective member of the executive cabinet.

Jack Martin can be reached at johnmartin@umass.edu.

UMass exceeds the 2020 Real Food Challenge

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In 2013, the University of Massachusetts was the largest university to sign the Real Food Campus Commitment with the support of students and Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. In 2020 it surpassed the 20 percent expectation, dedicating over 29 percent of its food budget to real food.

The Real Food Challenge is a national organization that, through the power of the youth and universities, aims to create a healthier and more eco-friendly food system. Their goal was to reallocate 20 percent of university budgets nationwide away from “industrial farms and unhealthy food and towards local & community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane food sources.”

UMass’s Executive Chef of Residential Dining Bob Bankert said that the Real Food Challenge is “really just a commitment to increase not only just our local purchases but our regional purchases, Fairtrade purpose purchases, organic food purchases, really looking at what we’ve purchased over the years and changing stuff to be more sustainable.”

“So it’s just looking at the quality of food that we’re bringing in and supporting local vendors,” Bankert said.

Seven years ago, UMass was only dedicating 8 percent of its budget to “Real Food,” and 16 percent in 2016. Bankert has been at UMass for eight years and he said, “each and every year we have a stronger commitment to what we’re purchasing.”

“Five or six years ago we committed to antibiotic free chicken across campus. Any chicken we used was antibiotic free which was kind of pushing the edge of what was going on in the food industry,” Bankert added. “We talked about it, we connected to sourcing for it, and we committed to do it 100 percent of the way.”

The process of sourcing real food involves larger distributors, aggregators and direct relationships with local farms. Kathy Wicks, the director of sustainability for UMass Dining, said that “Maple Line Farm is less than a mile away from campus and we source the vast majority of our milk right from them.”

“So they’re coming to campus multiple times a week, so that we can serve their fresh, delicious milk. And as you can imagine, not only does it taste better, but it’s also much more nutrient dense because it hasn’t been sitting around.”

“Everything from the milk, to the meats, to the produce is much fresher when we can source it locally,” Wicks said.

Making this food sustainability dream into a reality wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Henry P Kendall Foundation. Historically, the foundation focused solely on environmental issues, but pivoted to a more narrowed focus on food systems about seven years ago after realizing the extent of that industry’s impact on the environment.

UMass has been a part of their grant making for a number of years, and Wicks said that the partnership has “helped us [UMass] build our infrastructure and do promotional awareness campaigns, as well as bring together more farmers and institutions to talk together about how we can work together. The Kendall Foundation provided the seed money for us to be able to do a number of things.”

“In [Fiscal Year]20, UMass Dining spent close to $5 million on local, healthy, sustainable food… For each dollar the Kendall Foundation invested, UMass Dining has spent five times that on Real Food and the local economy,” Wicks added.

“According to some economic models on multipliers of investing in the local economy, every dollar spent in the local economy can have an impact of $1.60. Even with the challenges of the pandemic, UMass Dining spent $1.2 million on local produce, an increase of $25,000 from FY19” Wicks wrote.

Having a clear definition of what local is allows UMass to more successfully implement and enforce mechanisms for achieving more locally sourced dining. It creates a clearer framework to build off of in the future.

“One of the big things when we started this work was we actually defined what we meant by local, and that at the time was a really big deal. It still is a really big deal, because not a lot of institutions have a very well-defined definition of local” Wicks said.

We have a tiered system of ‘local’. First it is right around campus here in the Pioneer Valley, and then Massachusetts, and then New England, and then 250 miles from campus. So that lets us dip into New York state and a little bit into Pennsylvania.”

If everyone is on the same page about what “local” is, it’s easier to communicate and work together to successfully provide real food to the UMass community.

Making sustainable dining a reality through buying locally sourced food is an extremely collaborative process. UMass manages relationships with local farmers and larger distributors, and those connections can propagate to form an even larger network.

For example, Wicks said that one of UMass’ local farm partners “over time and in large part because of the relationship with us [UMass] become aggregators for other farmers.”

In the winter and early spring UMass begins meeting with local farmers and planning out what they will need for the coming semester.

“It’s building connections in the local areas and giving the farmers a commitment to what we can purchase,” Bankert said.

It’s seeing what they want to grow that’s new, or it’s us giving them some feedback on what we could use more of so they can grow more of it. So it’s really just a working relationship with local farmers to figure out in the past what hasn’t been purchased locally and what we can purchase locally going forward.”

Sourcing locally is crucial in efforts to support the local economy.

Courtesy of Kathy Wicks

“Keeping the financial dollars locally is huge for supporting our farmers. So it’s not being sent to around the globe or out to California farmers, it’s supporting them locally,” Bankert said. “And I think it’s just the trends in the foodservice industry even, you know, with restaurants is the push towards more a local purchasing and, and I think UMass has been a leader of that across a lot of universities and college dining programs in the U.S.”

However, Bankert also noted that not everything can come from farms in the Northeast, “for example, bananas,” he said.

“A couple of years ago we committed to purchasing a hundred percent of the fair-trade bananas all across campus. Again, to support, not a local farmer, but a farmer that could be down in South America, that is now being paid a fair price for what they’re growing,” Bankert said.

While local farmers have played an integral role in the success of the Real Food Challenge, the Student run farm at UMass has been just as important. “One of our favorite partnerships is with the student farm,” Wicks said.

Wicks has been working with the student farm for the past couple of years, “We partner with them and during normal times we have a farmer’s market that the permaculture program and the soup farm do in collaboration. And our purchases have been increasing over the last five years”

“The students actually develop their [own] growing plan and they interview us every year. It’s a new set of students and then they develop their plan from there,” Wicks said. “So it’s been exciting to have them as partners that are kind of learning farmers in progress. It’s been exciting to work with them; it’s such a big initiative and there’s so many working pieces.”

Wicks noted that student engagement has been instrumental in supporting and cultivating other UMass initiatives around sustainability, such as the permaculture garden.

“There were students that had learned of this and came to us and said, you know we see the permaculture work that’s happening now. Let’s take it into the kitchen and onto our plates and really make a difference. We embraced it,” Wicks said.

Bankert felt similarly delighted with the student farm. “They’ve been a huge partner for us over the past years as well. And we actually met with them a few weeks back and talked about fall planting. So each year we increase our purchases with the student farm as well.”

Student engagement is extremely important in sourcing locally to Ken Toong, the executive director of auxiliary enterprises.

“We also try to educate and tell a story about local farms and the food system to students. When [students] graduate you continue to support the local food system,” Toong said.

“I think we do our job because we grow the economy and build communities and support better food for all. It’s so important to us. But we’re not quite happy yet,” Toong said. “We think we can do more with support from students. Also even tracking the dining behaviors, you know, when students join us until they graduate. We see again that buying locally is an important factor for them, so it’s important for us to continue doing that.”

Bankert noted that in New England, since the growing season happens primarily from July to September, it can be “a challenge to figure out what we can buy locally” But, local farms have been increasing their year-round growing by utilizing greenhouses and other new technologies.

‘There’s so much potential in the next three, five, 10 years for this area to grow, and I think there’s going to be a lot of technology that plays a role into that to kind of really figure out what they can grow in the wintertime and make a make a living off of,” Bankert said.  “I think we’ll see a lot of fun stuff coming our way in the next five or 10 years.”

UMass’s growing relationship with farms such as Queen’s Greens, located less than a mile away from campus, is evidence of the success of these efforts.

Wicks said farmers have started to “grow [things] under these hoops that’s kind of like a mobile greenhouse. They’re able to actually grow spinach and lettuce greens and, even pea shoots, under these hoops all year round. They do that in the winter and then they’re out in the regular fields in the summer.”

“We can go to them and say we would like to have you grow for us a certain number of pounds every week. So we’ve been able to be a part of them thinking about growing their own infrastructure, knowing that we are a dedicated customer. It’s been a very kind of engaging relationship with a lot of the farmers that we work with”

Not only does this initiative require extensive collaboration externally, but teamwork within UMass has been instrumental in the RFC initiative.

Wicks emphasized how, “Our culinary team is just top-notch. If we can imagine it, they can make it happen. The dining managers and all of the staff here know that it really is about the experience. It’s not just putting the food on the plate, it’s about being there to support students, to be a part of their experience and to support their wellbeing. That happens on so many levels, so it helps to have a good team.”

The Real Food Challenge wasn’t the only challenge that UMass dining faced this year, as COVID proved to be another hurdle. Bankert said that, “one of the biggest struggles that we had was during this time in late winter, early spring, we meet with a lot of the farmers and make commitments to fall planting and what’s that going to produce for us.”

“Our farmers went ahead and planted assuming that [come fall everything would be normal]. We weren’t able to bring out a lot of that product from the farmers, so they had to look to other areas to sell it to you which was not fun to kind of deal with,” Bankert said. “Because you, you want to be able to support the local farmers and when you can’t actually purchase the food that you committed to, because the volume you’re doing again, they gotta find another source for it.”

However, the close relationship with farmers that UMass has cultivated over the past decade in some ways helped mitigate the negative impact of COVID on the local food system. Toong said that open communication with farmers and mindfulness concerning food waste were instrumental in overcoming challenges presented by COVID,

“We always have a way, like a hotline, so that anytime there’s a surplus, the [farmers] give us a call. We even change the menu to use it, to help them as well,” Toong said. “We want to use up what they have; and then the cost, sometimes we give incentives to them as well. I think that open communication was important to our local farmers.”

Despite these challenges, the future of sustainable dining at UMass looks bright. In the upcoming year, UMass plans to focus on becoming more transparent about the carbon impact of the ingredients that are in dishes, expand the permaculture garden, and increase the number of BIPOC vendors that they work with.

Wicks also hinted that “there will be a lot more opportunity for you [students] to engage with a lot of different more interactive and educational events”. Specifically, plans are in the works for UMass to host Diet for a Cooler Planet events and other events to get local farmers on campus and have them interact and educate students and ultimately put sustainable food choices on students’ radars.

A University as large as UMass exceeding the expectations of the Real Food Challenge proves that there is potential for general university adoption of sustainable food practices to set precedent and possibly change the way we as a society approach food sustainability.

“You know, this is larger than us,” Toong said. “I think we have the responsibility to support this new system. Also, we want to lead the rest of our peers. If UMass can do it, you can do it as well. We have proved it to everyone that it’s working. We’ve put in the commitment, met the benchmarks, you know… I think this is what education is all about. As a larger intuition I think we want to lead the way with the support from students.”

 

Esther Muhlmann can be reached at emuhlmann@umass.edu. Sophia Tsekov can be reached at stsekov@umass.edu.





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