Social Context (GH)

Social Analysis

This section will be exploring the social context of implementing and maintaining a CN greenhouse. As mentioned in the previous Capstone project related to this topic discussed their social context of why the greenhouse was desired for the Lafarm management. However our context is centered on the context of successfully implementing this technology into the Lafarm community.

As the Introduction states Lafarm is a sustainability initiative at Lafayette College which provides multiples services to Lafayette College, its students and the community around it. Although this initiative is highly supported among the community at Lafayette a greenhouse would introduce another level of complexity to what Lafarm would need. A greenhouse is not a passive technology and demands a great deal of maintenance and monitoring to achieve the desired outcome. Edmonds lives on the farm and would possess the ability to monitor it quite consistently however she is always seeking new information which occasionally puts her away from her home for a few nights. This would require additional maintenance and monitoring. Lafayette College being a small liberal arts school that is known for its engineering programs does not have the capability to introduce any generic system and needs to be correctly tailored to the needs and size of both the farm and the Lafayette community. While not a college known for their agriculture department Lafayette’s students and faculty strive to encourage a more eco-friendly lifestyle at Lafayette. Successfully implementing this technology would benefit the whole school in many different ways and would be a significant loss if not implemented.

Lafarm’s available land will also be undergoing an unrelated change to the intersection adjacent to the property that will affect the farms property line. Although this will take away some of the land it will increase the accessibility to the property for vehicles. Another change that is demanding attention is that the greenhouse Edmonds used in the past to utilize their season extension potential is no longer available for Edmonds in the upcoming growing season. Even at the large opportunity cost of using the Greenhouse located 40 minutes away, having the ability to tap into the benefits of starting seeds early is beneficial for Edmonds progress and Lafarm’s production capacity.

Small scale farming operation

Agriculture projects are quite simple when working within a large system that has the capacity to adapt to the technology. Lafayette College however does not hold the size to easily maintain this technology. A greenhouse requires a high level of maintenance to keep running; including heating and ventilation to keep a steady temp for growing plants, controlling the humidity of the interior of the greenhouse and proper precautions to fight off mold, viruses and detrimental insects. Relatively to other higher educational programs that have implemented this technology. Lafayette unfortunately has a small population to offer for additional maintenance and monitoring. A great example of successfully implementing this technology is Georgia College, which has a total of 1,300 square feet. However Georgia’s undergrad program is about 3x the amount of students as Lafayette. Another large difference between Lafayette’s potential greenhouse and Georgia’s current one is Georgia’s is directly on campus while Lafayette’s is a fair distance from its main campus. Lafarm’s potential carbon neutral greenhouse would need to be specifically tailored to the community it will be involving. This social context is very important in reaching out research goals of how to successfully integrate this technology into the entire community. The community surrounding Lafayette is luckily very focused on encouraging a green lifestyle.

Sustainability at Lafayette

Lafayette College puts a great deal of effort to convey a certain aura of sustainability to its campus to entice a more driven student that truly desire to come to this college. There are several organizations on campus that are student run that bolster the idea of sustainability into their peers on campus. Each organization does this in different ways to try and connect with as many students as possible. One of the organizations L.E.A.P (Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection) is aimed more to encourage students, through public displays to not overlook everyday uses of recourses or trash accumulation. While L.E.A.P strives to show people just how fragile our way of life is, the other sustainable program LaffCo works closely with Lafarm to increase its output and progress as a sustainability program. The organization has a mission statement on their website that culminates exactly what they aim to do with their organization; “Our mission is to cultivate fresh and local food, environmental interaction, and the health of the Lafayette community through the development and academic integration of a sustainable food system for the College.” (LaFFCo. 2015). Discussing what exactly LaffCo does with the president of the organizations Peter Todaro, shared with me that even though these organizations work separately they have an all-encompassing board that discusses their best options on how to progress forward.  This shows just how different these student run organizations go about spreading the idea of sustainability among the Lafayette community. Lastly Lafayette’s Society of Environmental Engineers and Scientist (S.E.E.S) strive to educate the community of what it means to be a sustainable STEM major while trying to solve environmental STEM problems in the community. These organizations take on the responsibility of influencing sustainability at Lafayette however in the end the work of all the organizations work towards the same outcome to demonstrate Lafayette’s values as a place for higher education. This reputation for Lafayette is important to the well-being of the school to help influence more driven and passionate students to apply to this school. Without this overall reputation the idea of a CN greenhouse would quickly be discarded for a simpler model however since Lafayette and is community strives to be eco-friendly they look past the technology itself and are fixated on how the idea of this technology will influence people’s perception of the school.

Environmental education/ Marketing

Lafayette College is a liberal arts college that emphasizes getting hands on experience with a working system. Exposing Lafayette students to this type of technology would help them understand how the systems of production, distribution and consumption work. College at its core is an institution that harbors higher learning and personal development. Not implementing this greenhouse would be a huge loss for the College on various levels. Educational greenhouses are showing up everywhere with great benefits to the students who are able to take advantage of this unique opportunity. The educational influence would outstretch to a multitude of majors; natural and social sciences, mathematics, Engineering and Economics. This list however is not exhausted and will continue to grow as Lafarm and Lafayette do. Lafarm is currently only used by a few professors to harbor more visual learning. Using the farm as a teaching tool is hard to do for professors since the educational system is designed to be non-invasive to the growing season from historical context. A greenhouse would allow Edmonds to extend her growing season by starting her seeds earlier in the Spring and allowing her to grow later into Autumn. Extending the season this small amount would overlap the growing season and educational season, increasing the ability for professors to use the greenhouse as an educational tool. Inaction of this technology would result in a huge loss in opportunity cost missing out on all the educational benefits the greenhouse would produce. Taking a step back from Lafayette College this greenhouse would also benefit the local community surrounding it. While talking to Edmonds about the greenhouses potential she made it clear that she will be willing to rent out a space in the greenhouse to local farmers. Renting out to local farmers would improve the connection of Lafarm to the local community and produce higher revenue for Lafarm. It would also increase revenue to Lafarm by increasing the farms capability to grow produce and sell it. Not implementing this technology would now make the college lose a higher level of education, a more connected community with Lafarm, less fresh food in the dining halls and an overall lose in revenue to Lafarm. As you can see not implementing this technology would be a great loss for the potential of Lafayette’s and its community.

Conclusion

Lafarm is associated with Lafayette but is disconnected physically by its location relative to the campus. The farms disconnect and size forces us to design a system that will be effective and unique to fit Lafayette’s particular needs. Most college agriculture problems are simply solved with large sale efficient farming operations maintained by a smaller portion of a much larger student body. This type of system will not work for Lafayette’s needs and cannot simply be inserted into the school without deliberate thought. This context emphasizes the “carbon neutral” part while still being able to increase production and educational capacity of Lafarm. Since Lafayette doesn’t fit most common agriculture systems the greenhouse we have researched specific solutions for the system in our technical analysis. Lafayette College must ensure the technology’s benefits are not overlooked.