Recommendations for Going Local
A functioning farm-to-college system requires additional time and resources, establishes fixed infrastructural systems, and entails dynamic and communicative relationships. A farm-to-college system doesn’t appear over night; rather, it grows organically: one product at a time, one farmer at a time. It is important to ask what’s easiest to do where you are, and to do that well. Moreover, it is critical to develop real interest and enthusiasm from both the bottom up and the top down—there has to be both grassroots interest from the students and the faculty and involvement from the senior staff and the board of trustees. A newly developing local food system will probably require additional financial support in the beginning. Yet the administration must remain patient and realize that although they may lose some money up front, they will be better off in the end overall. For Kenyon College, the innumerable rewards of going local have greatly outweighed any initial difficulties that we faced, and we hope to continue growing our local food system into the future.
Farm to College 