February 22, 2020

8:30am - 5:00pm

The Martin Institute at Stonehill College, Easton, MA, 

A gathering of the campus farmer community in New England

We are now at capacity, and we have closed registration! Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates. Campus farmers, students, and representatives from non-profits and agencies connect in person about what makes campus farms successful. This forum provides an opportunity for stakeholders working at the intersection of food justice, environmental sustainability, food access, and healthy eating to discuss challenges and opportunities. Partners from the nonprofit sector join us in conversation about what colleges and universities can do to forge deeper community alliances and strengthen our regional food system.

Program Details

Pssst! We think you campus farm folks will LOVE watching the webinar we recorded recently Radicalize the Hive: What Bees Can Teach Us About Shaping Social Change: it is a perfect prelude to the Campus Farmer Summit. 

The New England Campus Farmer Summit is a biennial event held in February that gathers the campus farm community in the northeast. The second biennial summit will highlight the value of campus farms and growing spaces, given larger societal concerns and shifts in structure, function, and constraints of higher education institutions. Attendees will leave the Summit feeling part of a larger campus farm community, with the connections, tools, and information to nourish their own communities, organizations, and farms.

Program Details

Statement of Purpose

Campus farms, gardens, and other growing spaces serve at the intersection of food justice, environmental sustainability, food access, and wellness. A campus farm can feed the student body and broader community and enriches academic and social life. Just as the farm provides nourishment through programs and produce, so does a campus farm require nourishment in the form of funding, partnerships, and stakeholders. The New England Campus Farmer Summit convenes farm managers, students, food service industry professionals, activists, and educators to explore the role of campus farms on campus, within our communities, and in building a better food system.

2020 Theme: Nourishing Farms, Nourishing Students

The 2020 summit program will focus on the theme of nourishment. Attendees from around the region will  gather to consider campus farms as living organisms, and enjoy opportunities to connect and learn about exciting and practical ways to nourish and be nourished by campus farms and our communities.

Audience

Co-hosted by Farm to Institution New England, Stonehill College, and the New England Farm & Sea to Campus Network, the summit gathers students, farmers, and instructors involved with campus farms and food systems, as well as campus farm partners and stakeholders such as school administrators, dining service staff, local for-profit farms, and organizations, agencies, and individuals that are working to nourish healthy students, campuses and food systems.

As a steering committee, we acknowledge that:

1. The sustainable agriculture movement in America has largely excluded Black, Latinx, Asian, Native American communities and others, as well as the vast contributions made by the expertise of those farming communities to the field of agriculture.
2. Enslaved African people built the wealth of the American economy on land stolen from Native American communities.
3. Our existing food system and farms are powered by the labor of Latinx and other foreign-born workers of color, but only 7% of farmer owner-operators are people of color.
4. Many forms of systemic and direct oppression within agriculture and beyond continue today and have lasting negative environmental, social, emotional, and financial impacts.

In light of these truths, the New England Campus Farmer Summit commits to actively seek diverse voices to share perspectives on how campus farms, gardens, and other growing spaces can serve - and can better serve - as the intersection of food justice, environmental sustainability, food access, and wellness. We commit to creating learning environments that respect the dignity of all people and that foster empathy, healing, and growth in individuals and communities where division, greed, and hate has endured in the past.

Our intention is that the Summit brings together the current and next generations of farmers and food systems leaders from all backgrounds to seek creative solutions to our greatest societal threats, including but not limited to: white supremacy & social injustice, climate change, and the dissolution of community bonds.

We commit to creating a safe space that ensures people of all backgrounds and any identity feel welcome and able to participate fully in this important work. We recognize that creating this type of space is an ongoing effort that requires listening, learning, allocation of resources, and intentional adjustment. In this spirit, we welcome you to join us at the 2020 New England Campus Farmer Summit.

*Several organizations provided inspiration and learning in the development of this statement, including Soul Fire Farm, the National Young Farmer's Coalition, the University of Iowa, Modern Farmer and others. We welcome your feedback and partnership as we continue these efforts. 

~ The 2020 New England Campus Farmer Summit Steering Committee