Written by Lindsay Messerschmidt and Onnela Pukk

Do you pay attention to where your food comes from?  How many carbon emissions were released into the air to get that California apple to you? Have you ever thought about how your food purchases might affect your local economy, the environment or your health?

Students and faculty have begun to recognize that local food is a key way to support sustainable initiatives on the University of Guelph campus. As the number one agricultural university in the world, and with its food science department being the largest in the university, the U of G has great resources to support local food initiatives on campus, including celebrating the work Hospitality Services has made in providing local food options on campus. Guelph is unique among Canadian universities in offering both academic and applied learning opportunities in organics on campus.

Buying local food has many rewards. It supports farmers economically and sends the message that their work is valuable. Knowing the people behind your produce builds human relationships and encourages quality food products. Local food is more nutritious because it is picked at its peak, and reduces environmental impacts as transportation is minimized, so food produced locally doesn’t leave such a large carbon footprint. Besides keeping businesses in the community, a sustainable LFS can offer fresh, tasty, and safe foods to consumers.

The student will is there, and an effort to make it easier to distinguish between non-local and local products could further foster a student body that is readily able to support the local community. The current situation suggests that students who are unaware of local food initiatives on campus assume that local foods have not been integrated into the University’s food systems. This assumption is, however, far from true.

Hospitality Services currently sources up to forty per cent of the University’s food locally, primarily through the EPAC (Elmira Produce Auction Cooperative inc.).  EPAC is a wholesale market for regional produce serving country market owners, local universities, as well as individual community members, all looking for quality and the unbeatable taste of fresh picked food. Locally purchased products include fresh produce, dairy, eggs, yogurt, ice cream and a variety of meats – an accomplishment worth celebration and praise. If students were equipped with the ability to differentiate between what is local and what is not, they too could appreciate these previous initiatives, while possibly fuelling a demand that could encourage more sustainable food being brought onto campus.

The University of Toronto took steps to ensure that students were able to differentiate local food on campus from other foods, in 2006. They launched a deal with their food service companies to meet and implement the labeling standards of Local Food Plus; a Canadian non-profit organization that certifies local sustainable farmers. The University of Guelph could replicate this model, in order to strengthen student awareness about the numerous local food products already provided on campus.

Students at the U of G would like to see the university take action and implement an undergraduate Local Food Systems and sustainability course that will work to increase the availability of local foods on campus. The idea came from the University of British Columbia, where a similar set of courses were developed nine years ago and are now being offered at the University as the UBC Food System Project (UBCFSP), an initiative towards sustainable and secure campus food systems. Encompassed within the UBC land, food and community suite of course, the overall objective of this ongoing collaborative research project is to assess the sustainability of the UBC campus food system, and continually respond to barriers and opportunities while transitioning towards food system sustainability. Just as UBC assumed responsibility, the U of G can provide students with the opportunity to improve their understanding of globally relevant issues while studying the impacts of the food system feeding the campus and Guelph community. A course would help students evaluate the ecological, economic, and social sustainability of food systems, while working to increase the availability of local food at the university.

A group of students advocating for local food met with President Alistair Summerlee to discuss the opportunity for establishing a local food system course at the University. The students were elated to find that he is very supportive of this idea. He also suggests that through the course, students further develop the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming at the Arboretum to maximize production as a source of local food for campus – a unique initiative where even honey is made from the bees on the farm. The centre’s coordinator, Martha Gay Scroggins, commented about the barriers to expanding farm production. “We need a vision plan – a long-term 10 year plan. We have very limited resources to work with, so we definitely need donations. We need to build washing stations and an outdoor shower and we’re putting in a solar energy system, she explained.”  They also need the hands of volunteers to help with numerous tasks from planting and pulling weeds to making compost and saving seed. Martha stated that the farm is “all about building transparency and a whole new way of farming,” but that “it’s not been accepted throughout the campus yet.”  She said that it’s “…the excitement of the student body” that keeps it going.  The potential is bountiful.

There you have it: the importance of supporting local food at the University of Guelph has even the president’s support for a more sustainable food system on campus.  Find out how you too can get involved.

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