Selling the Campus Farm

By Kyle Spencer

Published: April 13, 2012

Excerpt:

FORGET the cheese brick and salami round that Dad picks up on alumni weekends. Today’s college farm cultivates exotic fruits, expensive Asian greens and grass-fed beef. Students are developing product lines for high-end tastes, and honing not just basic husbandry skills but also marketing savvy in the interest of turning their acreage into profit centers.

...Jenn Halpin, the farm manager at Dickinson College, puts the movement in perspective. “This isn’t just about being economically viable,” says Ms. Halpin, who also teaches in the environmental studies department. “It’s also about finding ways to connect with your community.”

FARM-FRESH DRESSING

At Dickinson College’s 50-acre organic farm, high-tunnel greenhouses extend the growing season, so Katelyn Repash had a bright idea: “to make more use of the fresh vegetables and herbs we had on hand,” Ms. Repash says. She spent many solitary hours in Dickinson’s freshly renovated test kitchen chopping, stirring and tasting. She created a big-selling line of tangy seasonal salad dressings packed with bell peppers, beefsteak tomatoes, basil and arugula.

Ms. Repash graduated last year and now works at a livestock farm in Maryland. Her successors have concocted a Red Devil hot sauce, named for the school’s mascot, that has done so well that they are increasing hot pepper production this spring by 300 percent. Students have recently completed testing a rich, herb-laced pasta sauce that awaits U.S.D.A. approval. The vinaigrettes ($4.75 a bottle) are available at the farmers market in downtown Carlisle, Pa.