Community farms offer space for people to enjoy the outdoors, organize movements, and create their food impedance. Being outdoors in and of itself is beneficial and can contribute to the emotional well-being of community farmers. Typically farm work includes physical activity which contributes to the benefits of community farms. Humans evolved to feel safe in natural environments, and community farms offer a respite from built environments that can help reduce stress (Baur 2022).
Beyond the physical benefits, community farms can help generate access to clean and healthy foods which when positioned in food deserts can become crucial to the well-being of local residents (Baur 2022).
There is a growing trend across higher education to integrate campus farms into the offerings of the institution. Lafayette recently added the environmental studies major and is not alone in this trend of creating more curricula centered around environmental education and sustainability. Campus farms have become the obvious extension of these courses where students can get hands-on lab experience with the principles they are learning about. While these principles are typically not heavily science-focused on the agricultural side of growing food, some students do learn these aspects of farming while others get to learn more about the food loop (Francesca 2023).
This hands-on experience can help broaden the scope and understanding of students learning about these topics in class. The farms not only serve the campus and students but also the community and work as education settings for students to learn about community engagement and development. Assignments focused on outreach and community building are common and facilitated by these campus farms (Francesca 2023). Community gardens are more than just teaching tools at universities and have a rich history of meeting the needs of the local community. In St. Louis, a study of the community gardens in the area showed that they were most used by low-income communities to meet their nutritional needs (Wang 2022).
LaFarm began taking shape in 2008 with inspiration from Dickinson College Farm. The first form of LaFarm was a composting program that materialized into “Corn on the Quad” where students planted corn in certain areas across the main campus quad. The project received great reception and with growing environmental consciousness across campus, Lafayette students received funding from the Clinton Foundation and college administration to create a permanent agricultural establishment (LaFarm History).
Space at Metzger was selected for the garden and the community helped out by building a fence and rainwater harvesting system. Clubs and classes contributed to the effort in planning, executing, and purchasing equipment. By 2011 LaFarm was a functional farm run by head farmer Sarah Edmonds. They began selling produce that was being grown, integrating their work into campus events, and engaging with the community. Since then the farm has continuously added new equipment, hosted classes and labs, and continued to evolve their engagement with the campus and surrounding communities. In 2014 the farm grew in size to 3 acres and hosted more and more classes (LaFarm History).