W.T. Harris Dining Hall to use food grown through Agricultural Food Systems program

By Luanne Williams

Students studying agricultural food systems at Wingate will give the larger campus a literal taste of their success this fall when butternut, acorn and delicata squash grown at the University's Research and Education Farm are served in the W.T. Harris Dining Hall. In their first foray into larger-scale crops, agroecology students planted 100 winter squash plants in the spring and harvested 1,450 pounds of produce last month.

"It's exciting," says senior Rosalina Sanchez-Gloria of the prospect of having food she's had a hand in growing wind up on other students' plates. "I'm eager to try what the dining hall has planned."

Having completed an Agricultural Food Systems work-study last year, Sanchez-Gloria, who is eyeing a career in nutrition/food science, will be a sustainability intern for Chartwells, the University's dining service, this year.

"I look forward to seeing how it all comes back around from farming to dining, and hopefully continuing the cycle by composting for the Wingate farm," she says.

Gena Moore, who leads Agricultural Food Systems, one of the newer emphases offered in the Department of Biology, says squash have also been donated to hunger-relief organizations like Common Heart and the University's own foodbank, Paw Provisions. And she expects continued collaboration with Chartwells.

"This really shows the impact students can have through engaging with our Agricultural Food Systems program," Moore says.

The University's farm, an eight-acre plot next to the Union County office of the N.C. Cooperative Extension and just five minutes from campus, got its start in the spring of 2023. Since then, students have conducted variety trials on carrots, potatoes and kale and have also grown peppers, green beans, summer squash, strawberries and flowers. But the winter squash project was different.

"We wanted to have a larger impact on our community and generate enough product to provide for campus dining," Moore says. "This could only be done by scaling up."

Having grown seedlings in the Wingate greenhouse, students planted them on a tenth of an acre at the farm in May, relying on the Extension to help them prepare the field and identify potential pest issues. They were also able to join the Extension's Donation Station program, which connects farmers with families facing food insecurity, another collaboration that Moore hopes to expand as students grow more food at the farm. A half dozen students volunteered over the summer to help look after the field of squash until the fall agroecology class could take over. That's when things got a little tricky, Moore says.

"Our harvest was planned for the second week of September, after the fall semester got fully underway," she says. "Unfortunately Mother Nature had different ideas."

Wet and overcast conditions brought on by Hurricane Debby caused a disease called downy mildew that shortened the growing season and required an earlier harvest, sending students and volunteers into the field near the end of August. A second harvest was completed by the Society of St. Andrew, a food-rescue and -distribution organization.

Sanchez-Gloria, who helped with maintaining the field and harvesting the squash, says she learned a lot about the plants, such as "how vigorous they grow, what they like, what they don't like."

She also learned that farming is not without its challenges. "The most difficult task was working with the different changes of weather," she says. "Sometimes a heavy storm set us back a little, and sometimes the lack of rain was just as detrimental."

But the changing conditions didn't dampen her enthusiasm.

"I really enjoyed my experience at the farm," she says. "It has even encouraged me to start my own garden at home. I hope to continue growing food that I can share and enjoy with others."

Sept. 15, 2024

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