Clifton Community Partnership

Sustainability article:
Dirt Made My Lunch
May 29, 2008
Source: Community Partnership Update/April 2007

Thinking about planting a vegetable garden this year? So is Emory.

Three gardens were planted this spring in the middle of campus to ensure that food sustainability becomes a growing concept at Emory.

“A lot of people don’t know what food plants look like,” said Peggy Barlett, an Emory anthropology professor who is heading up the Sustainable Food Initiative. “The goal of the gardens is to help people understand where food comes from and help them become more connected to the outdoors through the fun of watching things grow.”

In the coming warm weather, watch for broccoli, asparagus, peppers and peas to sprout amid the daylilies and daffodils in different plots around campus.

The University’s Strategic Plan sets a goal of buying 75 percent of food for campus dining from local or sustainable agriculture sources by 2015. The plan also includes starting a campus farmers market and a sustainable farm, along with the campus gardens.

A few other leading universities are on the same track regarding sustainable food, “but we have especially ambitious strategic goals here at Emory,” Barlett said. “We’ve made a commitment that the sooner we can get away from supporting production systems that pollute or harm local farmers, the better.”

The campus gardens are not designed to produce a substantial amount of food but instead to serve as a hands-on educational and motivational tool. Each garden will have a slightly different character. Plaques and brochures will tell passersby about the crops in each garden and touch on the larger theme of sustainable food production.

Eventually, student groups will be invited to “adopt” an area and plant species representative of a particular region or purpose. One possibility, according to Barlett, would be a medicinal garden featuring antioxidant plants to link the sustainable food effort to Emory’s health-promotion activities.