Students use a seeder for fall planting on Terp Farm, located at the university's Upper Marlboro research facility.
Image Credit: Edwin Remsberg
(The following article appeared in The Diamondback on Wednesday, October 8:)
Now that the Terp Farm project is underway and providing dining services with fresh produce across campus, students in the fields and in the dining halls will begin to see the fruits of their labor.
Since the start of the summer, the student-operated Terp Farm has been supplying Dining Services with fresh, sustainably grown produce. These plans were approved last February.
With roughly two acres of land to work with, the students working on the Terp Farm bring in a little over a half-ton of fresh fruits and vegetables to the campus every week, said Christopher Walsh, a plant science and landscape architecture professor whose class works at the farm. Walsh said the farm achieves consistent, reliable quantity and ease of distribution, along with the sustainable, organic practices promised when the project was first announced.
“What is coming out of [Terp Farm] is essentially sustainably produced, organically produced. There is almost no plastic being used except for irrigation lines, almost no pesticides being used except for organic pesticides,” Walsh said. “So think from the production side; it’s certainly fulfilling the mandate.”
The farm is university-owned and operated, which means students can expect a level of freshness and variety from produce on the campus, said Allison Lilly, Dining Services sustainability and wellness coordinator.
“We have had an opportunity with Guy [Kilpatric], our farmer out at Terp Farm, to plant more specialty products that maybe we wouldn’t necessarily have the opportunity to try or buy.” Lilly said. “[The chefs] were able to try out new varieties and see what works and what the students like.”
The farm not only aims to increase dining options, but it will also give students studying agriculture an opportunity for hands-on experience. Walsh said that many students coming to the agricultural school do not have actual experience working on a farm. As the only non-livestock-focused agricultural farm available to students, Terp Farm can be an educational instrument that goes beyond textbooks for professors to use.
“We’re not training people to do the hand labor, we’re training people to be able to manage the hand labor, Walsh said. “You do it once and then you figure out how you actually manage a crew doing [the labor]. For suburban kids who want to get into agriculture this is a great opportunity.”
Most of the labor on the farm comes from students in various agricultural classes and other volunteers from both in and outside the campus community. Walsh said a workforce of mostly students ensures a steady and reliable flow of labor on the farm. Kilpatric, the farm’s lead agricultural technician, said the influx of labor significantly increased efficiency on the farm.
“I’m out here with 25 different fruits and vegetables, and it definitely has made the landscape look different [since we started],” Kilpatric (pictured left) said. “People come in here all the time and comment about how amazed they are just to see some of these things growing, some of the vegetables we have, and make that connection between what they eat and where it comes from.”
