Student works in the Mino Aki Community Garden

Below are some of the current food projects and initiatives on campus:

• Mino Aki Community Garden
• MELLC Orchard
• Cafeteria

Mino Aki Community Garden

It could be heard like wolves in the night, students carving out their own space to grow, eat and learn. About ten years ago under the cover of darkness students desiring a place to garden dug up a plot on campus. Their vigilante project gained so much popularity that their garden not only grew in a productive manner but in size as well. The garden adopted the Ojibwa name Mino Aki for good earth, as this is what the students sought it to be.

Now located behind the McLean Environmental Living and Learning Center (MELLC), the Mino Aki community garden is a place on campus where students can learn about organic gardening.

With the support of NCSA, student coordinators purchase organic seeds and the necessary tools. They organize planting events and harvest days.

Greenhouse space in the MELLC and the Larson-Juhl Center for Science and the Environment are used to cultivate seeds, after which, the seedlings are allowed time to harden off in the hoop structure next to the garden before being planted. Compost made out of food waste from the cafeteria and residence halls is incorporated into the soil every season and helps maintain a sufficient level of organic material and nutrients in the soil.

The garden undergoing new production plans will now provide all the fresh produce used on the Outdoor Orientation trips Northland offers for new students.

Orchard

In front of the MELLC sits the blossoming orchard consisting of various fruit trees including apples, a local favorite. The orchard, relocated in the fall of 2006, consists of trees donated by the class of 2001 and trees planted by a 2006 graduate senior for a capstone project on local foods. The trees, which should become productive in the next five years will provide apples and other fruit for the Outdoor Orientation trips as well as other campus functions.

Cafeteria

Living in Northern Wisconsin, it isn't easy to eat only locally grown food. But this didn't stop Northland College students from looking into it. In 1993, an Environmental Issues Seminar class researched the advantages of using local, organically grown produce in the cafeteria.

Their research was presented in a 26-page paper that discussed issues such as pesticide use versus organic techniques, the consequences of conventional farming and sustainable agriculture practices, the energy cost of local and distant food sources, and the economic impacts of altering Northland College's food purchasing patterns.

As a start, they suggested that potatoes and onions be the first local crops to be used in the cafeteria. Despite the consequence of a six-cent-per-meal-plan increase, the Northland College Student Association voted to try this plan. Today, the program continues. Roughly 20 percent of the vegetables and nearly all of the ingredients used to make vegan and vegetarian meals are purchased from local farmers.

Apart from the local food the cafeteria prides itself on serving sustainably harvested seafood, providing free reusable mugs and serving fair trade coffee.




Contact Information

Environmental Council: environmentalcouncil@northland.edu

Chartwells: Jeff Spangenberg, General Manager of Food Service

Additional Resources

UW Madison Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems- "The College Food Project: Northland College Case Study" http://www.cias.wisc.edu/northland.php