Organic dining on campus receives a boost

Local organic producers are receiving some wonderful support from colleges throughout the U.S. What am I talking about?

There’s a new blog out there called Organic on the Green. Its purpose is to support the development of organic food programs on colleges nationwide. The initiative, which has been brought to life by Nina Merrill, a senior at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, provides a wonderful insight into the hearts and minds of the organic industry’s future leaders. Whether it’s a personal account of involvement in the SAFE program or a discussion about the relative merits of organic certification for a large university dining service, the posts are well-written, thoughtful and interesting. Well worth checking out!

In other news, Bates College recently received a $2.5 million donation that is to be used to increase the college’s use of local, organic and natural food.

The gift, which was received from an anonymous alumni donor, carries with it the requirement that it be used to meet the additional costs associated with serving more local, natural and organic food at Bates. Since 1986 about 22 percent of the Bates annual food budget had been spent on local, natural and organic food.

The gift has allowed the College to increase that number to 28 percent in the past fiscal year. For context, the national student initiative “Real Food Challenge” has as its target to redirect 20 percent of all food purchased by colleges and universities (currently $4 billion) toward “real food” by 2020.

In remarks prepared for delivery at Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 3, Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen said: “In their own characteristically ambitious yet modest way, so many Bates faculty, students, staff members and alumni are clearly part of a quiet movement — national and international — that is tackling the problems of our food system. By contemplating food, we want to celebrate and share even more widely many powerful stories about Bates and food.”

Besides celebrating and making visible what already occurs at Bates, the initiative has a second objective, Hansen explained.

“We want to add to the understanding and knowledge about food on campus — where our food comes from, the food system at Bates, the larger food system in which Bates is embedded. So we don’t want to forget in celebrating how we all eat, that there are growing social problems associated with the food system. We want to raise consciousness. We want to educate ourselves. We want to dispel our own ignorance and complacency by considering these issues. We want to explore why, for Bates, a strong and healthy food culture is so important to the educational mission.”

Bates’ focus on food has included a summer reading assignment for this fall’s incoming first-year students and plans for a variety of panels and presentations throughout the academic year.

Bates’ exploration of food took root last spring when President Hansen gathered a small number of students, faculty and staff who share an interest in food and eating to consider the concept.

The group, she said, was “overwhelmed by how much was already going on at Bates. We felt we should develop a kind of clearinghouse, making it all more visible. With food as the thread that connects us, to each other and to our larger community, we will spend the next year celebrating and contemplating more deeply the ways that gathering together around food enhances and supports the college’s mission,” she said.