BACKGROUND
LaFarm is a portion of Lafayette college that is dedicated to bringing together students and faculty from various departments across campus with the objective of sustainable food production. It is currently a 3 acre plot of land located directly next to the Metzgar field complex, placing it roughly 2 miles away from Lafayette’s main campus. The farm has grown significantly since it was started in 2009 on a single acre of land. It has grown 2 acres while adding an irrigation system, a large perimeter fence, several sheds and storage buildings, and a rain catchment system. This growth has allowed LaFarm to diversify its core produce which includes asparagus, beans, beets, cabbage, eggplants, garlic, and herbs while simultaneously increasing crop yields. Fiscally, the expansion has allowed LaFarm’s harvest retail and wholesale value to grow to roughly $9,000.00 in 2017. With LaFarms recent success, the food and farm club, LaFFCo, was able to secure funding in order to restore the bee program at the farm, which further expands the capabilities of the space (2017 Capstone) . In addition to these successes, LaFarm has recently received a new farm manager, Lisa Miskelly, who has been working on the farm since the start of 2018 and is looking forward to helping LaFarm continue to prosper (Tropp, 2018).
The farm acts primarily as an educational tool for students at Lafayette College. As the farm itself is only 3 acres, and as such not very large for a farm, the educational element to the farm is critical. Along these lines, the farm operates as a laboratory for student and faculty learning and research. It is key to bring in cross disciplinary students to the farm to facilitate conversations about sustainability, agriculture, and business (Education, 2013). This learning extends beyond simply observing what is happening at the farm and required increased student and faculty involvement there.
Lafarm additionally provides Lafayette college dining services with sustainably grown produce that is served in a number of the on campus dining halls (LaFarm Annual Report, 2013). This gives students healthy eating options that they can have a hand in growing and developing. There is also an educational component as students see a focus on locally grown produce for consumption on school grounds. The farm also creates a sustainable food loop with Lafayette by taking wasted food and using it as fertilizer in order to grow more produce, in turn reducing the amount of waste produced (LaFarm Annual Report, 2013). This is another example of Lafayette students learning by the example provided by Lafayette.
Lastly, LaFarm serves as a connection between Lafayette College and the surrounding communities through a series of community-based partners. LaFarm is partnered with groups within the city of Easton, such as the Easton Urban Garden, in order to donate produce and provide support through the exchange of ideas (Landauer, 2015). This is an educational example for Lafayette students of the school beneficially impacting communities in Easton through the provision of healthy food access to such communities. It also works to strengthen the relationship between the college and the local community.
OUR PROJECT
Currently LaFarm contains no cold storage space for harvested produce. This creates a problem of environmental as well as harvesting inefficiency. Any produce that is ready to be harvested must be packaged and shipped to its final destination immediately and then stored on site there, whether that is at Lafayette College or one of LaFarms community partners. Since not all produce can be harvested at the same time, it requires a large number of trips between the farm and its partners which uses and excessive amount of fossil fuels and is simply inefficient. Lisa Miskelly has expressed the need for a storage facility on site due to scheduling issues she has when it comes to harvesting produce. Currently, when a pick up is scheduled either Lisa or a group of students must be present in order to harvest the produce and then package it for delivery on the day it is scheduled. If Lisa or a student cannot be present to perform the harvesting then she has to reschedule the pick up. When dealing with asset like crops, the time to harvest is a crucial and time dependent aspect in terms of maximizing yield. If crops are not harvested before they ripen and stored right away, or harvested when they are ripe to then be consumed soon after, they will be wasted.
The creation of a cold storage space, in the form of a root cellar, would be ideal as a method to decrease the previously stated inefficiencies of LaFarm. Creating a carbon neutral storage space at LaFarm would improve environmental and harvesting efficiency of the production of fresh produce with a reduction in wasted crops. Lisa/other LaFarm workers would be able to harvest the crops before they ripen and then store them on sight. From there, the crops could finish ripening at a slower pace in the root cellar, to then be shipped to their final destinations once they are ready. Once the produce is stored in the root cellar, it would take longer to ripen, giving more time for produce transportation. Less produce would be wasted through inefficiencies in the transportation of the produce not aligning with ripening times at the field.
The root cellar would also serve to further Lafayette’s climate action plan by creating a storage space that wouldn’t require energy to stay cool. Rather than all plants at LaFarm needing to be sent directly to powered storage, they would be stored in the natural cold storage of the root cellar. Lastly, the root cellar would serve as a teaching point for students on how to live sustainably simply through providing an example of an additional real life example of sustainable living.
LaFarm also faces issues that arise from being located almost 2 miles away from Lafayette’s main campus. Based on personal experience, due to this distance many students are unaware that LaFarm exists, or know it exists but have had no experience actually at the farm. The lack of usable classroom space at the farm reduces reason for classes to travel there because there is no usable space for them besides the farm itself. The result of this distance and lack of practical space for a classroom at the farm leads to many students never visiting LaFarm in their time spent at Lafayette College. An additional strapulation we make here is that this lack of contact with LaFarm reduces the amount of people who know about volunteering opportunities at Lafarm, or who are willing to volunteer there.
A solution to this lack of use of Lafarm as an educational space is through constructing a multipurpose classroom adjacent to the farm. Having a space that can be used by students located at LaFarm would firstly increase academic use of the space. Once such an increase is established, in suit would follow an increase the number of people who are willing to visit and become involved at the farm. In addition to these uses of the classroom, Lisa Miskelly has also expressed interest in hosting events at LaFarm in order to show its progress and further integrate it into the Lafayette community. The classroom would be a perfect space for such events. In addition to these uses, the classroom could also potentially facilitate an opportunity for local public schools to visit a small, but crop diverse, farm.
The multipurpose outdoor classroom will be situated at the plateaued area above the hill semi-adjacent to the root cellar, yielding an ideal teaching environment that overlooks the farm in its entirety. This combination will deliver an ideal blend of both educational and environmentally sustainable benefits to both Lafarm and Lafayette College as a whole.
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