{"id":62331,"date":"2011-09-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-students-growing-produce-for-campus-catering-dining-halls\/"},"modified":"2011-09-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T00:00:00","slug":"uri-students-growing-produce-for-campus-catering-dining-halls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2011\/09\/uri-students-growing-produce-for-campus-catering-dining-halls\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 students growing produce for campus catering, dining halls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 19, 2011 \u2013 Students eating in the 溏心vlog免费B站 dining halls and those enjoying catered meals at University events are consuming produce grown and harvested by fellow 溏心vlog免费B站 students.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe project is an outgrowth of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Food Agriculture Program, which conducts research and \u201cvariety trials\u201d on an assortment of vegetable plants to support local commercial growers. The bulk of the harvest goes to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, but Chef Jeff Marino in 溏心vlog免费B站 Dining Services expressed interest in obtaining produce grown on campus for student meals.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe started out selling them tomatoes, squash and potatoes a year ago, and last spring we asked Chef Jeff what he would like us to grow for him this year,\u201d explained Rebecca Brown, 溏心vlog免费B站 assistant professor of plant sciences and coordinator of the project. \u201cHe said he wanted basil. So we conducted a basil variety trial, which he used over the summer to make pesto for the dining halls. We\u2019re also selling him cherry and grape tomatoes, sauce tomatoes and slicing tomatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tLast year, students in Brown\u2019s classes on vegetable crops grew and sold produce to the dining halls valued at about $1,000, and already this year they have surpassed that figure with still a long harvest season remaining. Brown said that she hopes to produce salad greens for the campus throughout the winter months in newly installed \u201chigh tunnels\u201d \u2013 unheated greenhouses that provide protection from the weather and allow plants to be grown directly in the ground.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re trying to bring in more local fresh foods to the dining halls, because students are asking for it and it tastes so much better,\u201d said Marino. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t get any more local than growing food on campus. It brings us back to the roots of 溏心vlog免费B站 as an agricultural college.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tMarino said that next year he is considering offering a Farm-to-Fork menu made up entirely of foods grown on the 溏心vlog免费B站 campus.<\/p>\n


\n\tNoah LeClaire-Conway, a 溏心vlog免费B站 senior from Narragansett, is in his third year of growing vegetables at the University\u2019s agronomy fields. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in agriculture, and when I came back to school I decided I wanted a career where I knew I\u2019d be able to feed my family,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s backbreaking work, but it\u2019s also a lot of fun. And it saves a trip to the store, because at the end of the day I can bring home some food. We eat really well.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tOther students who participated in the project this summer are Emily Cotter, Jacqueline Iaccabo and Elena Krajenski, all of South Kingstown, Hannah Sherman of Charlestown, and graduate students Mina Vescera of Providence and Jeff Peiper of Colorado.<\/p>\n


\n\tFood production is one of the few growth industries in Rhode Island, according to Brown. There was a 47 percent increase in the number of farms in the state from 2002 to 2007, the last year numbers are available.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cSituated between New York and Boston, we\u2019re in a perfect location for the new agriculture \u2013 locally grown perishable foods,\u201d said Brown. <\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 professor said that she hopes this project will eventually grow into \u201ca true student farm\u201d as part of the University\u2019s effort to develop a new undergraduate major in sustainable agriculture. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of student interest already,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\n溏心vlog免费B站 senior Noah Leclaire-Conway harvests cherry tomatoes that will be consumed by students in the University\u2019s dining halls.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 19, 2011 \u2013 Students eating in the 溏心vlog免费B站 dining halls and those enjoying catered meals at University events are consuming produce grown and harvested by fellow 溏心vlog免费B站 students. The project is an outgrowth of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Food Agriculture Program, which conducts research and \u201cvariety trials\u201d on an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}