Field Trip -- Cornercopia and Campus Club

So this was a two-part field trip, but really thematically tied together.

In the morning (this happened May 8th) we took a trip to the organic student farm, Cornercopia. We got a tour and a quick history of the establishment. I was particularly interested to hear how receptive the school administration had been to their land allocation; organic farming doesn't seem like something the U really leverages to its advantage (in admissions or advertising) and it takes up a lot of space compared to, say, an eight-story building packed with classrooms. But I suppose land is a lot easier for the school to dole out when they don't have to build a modern facility covering it and fill that facility with paid faculty.

There has been a lot said about this trip on the other blog posts, but what it really got me fired up about is doing my own growing. I'm always a little bit entranced by the ability of plants to grow, turning light and water and air into FOOD, right in front of your eyes. Walking through greenhouses and fields and the little orchard section made me excited to get moving on my own garden. In fact, it got to the point where I couldn't really keep track of which sorts of things I was most excited to grow!



Later in the day we all met back up and got a tour of the Campus Club. I'll be honest -- what I remember most is that fantastic curry with cilantro chutney. But I also was impressed by the business acumen I saw there.

Really, that's something I noticed in both places. I felt like there was significant time spent in this class in sort of a head-in-the-clouds "wouldn't it be nice if we planted daisies in every other row of this industrial, profit-focused factory farm?" and "why don't we just lift all of the subsidies from meat and apply them to produce?". And don't get me wrong -- those sound amazing. But they get no points for practicality, or even plausibility. On the other hand, both Cornercopia and Compus Club gave the impression of extremely practical and squarely-run operation that also just happened to be organic, local-focused, whatever.



That was what most impressed me, and what has stuck with me. You probably can't shoehorn organic and local priorities into any old business model and expect it to work, but you can make an organic or local food business WORK.