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.