Category: Background

LaFarm is a three-acre working farm and community garden focused on diversified vegetables and flowers located 3 miles from Lafayette’s main campus. It is comprised of production fields, pollinator gardens, high tunnels (one large and one small), and a greenhouse in addition to community garden plots. LaFarm provides healthy food to campus and the surrounding community, is incorporated into classes across many disciplines, has been a site for research, and offers volunteer opportunities.

I worked on LaFarm since my first semester at Lafayette (my first farm shift was before my first class)! LaFarm has grown from a small plot to a 3-acre farm and community garden space since its beginning. Beyond LaFarm is 110 acres of farmland that is leased to a farmer who uses conventional agriculture practices to grow corn and soybeans. The land which I worked with for this independent study is a half acre of the 110 acres, just beyond the deer fence that surrounds LaFarm.

My name is Olivia Simione. I’ve worked on the Lafayette College Farm since my first semester at Lafayette. I grew up gardening, but wouldn’t consider myself a farmer until I came to Lafayette. I fell in love with farming immediately, more specifically, the sustainable, no-till practices that Farmer Josh had implemented since he started managing the farm a year earlier. 

Practices I had learned about sustainable agriculture in my AP Environmental Science class, my senior year of high school, were happening right in front of me, and not only that, I had the privilege of contributing to this important work. From drip irrigation to mulching to diversified crop production, I was hooked; I couldn’t get enough.

I applied for the Farm Apprenticeship, a position at LaFarm that follows the Pre-Apprentice framework created by PASA, and got the job! I worked in the spring part-time, summer full-time, and fall part-time. At the annual PASA conference, I graduated from the program, earning my DVP certification in February of 2024. Despite having finished the apprenticeship, I certainly was not finished with LaFarm and continued to work every semester. In the fall of 2024, the farm was still a constant in my life.

During all this time, industrial agriculture, whose harms I was quite familiar with, was practiced by a conventional corn and soy farmer just beyond the fence of LaFarm. I had always daydreamed about transitioning some of that land to the sustainable practices observed at LaFarm, wanting to rescue it from the throes of tillage, chemical fertilizers and monocropping. But, I always thought that would be impossible and too lofty of a goal for a college student.

A conversation with one of my professors about this dream of mine helped me realize it was possible and was the push I needed to initiate my independent study for Spring 2025.