Students and faculty perusing the produce offered at the University’s farmer’s market should be on the lookout for another farmer’s market — operated and supplied with produce grown right on campus by students.
The Hill Farm Student Research Project Market opened March 29. The market will be on South Stadium Drive and Highland Road every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., plant and soil systems senior Jean Pittman says, selling students and faculty fresh produce. The produce will be harvested just one to two days prior to being available for sale. Hill Farm is located on the east side of campus, nestled between University High School and the Recreation Center.
“You can’t get more fresh than that,” English junior Teresa Bruno says. “It’s an opportunity for LSU students and faculty to purchase local, healthy food.”
Five undergraduate students in an organic gardening course decided to start the farmer’s market. The students brought home all the food they harvested but ended up giving much of it away to family and friends, Pittman says. This led to the idea of opening a farmer’s market, which is part of the students’ special topics research.
“With us taking the food home, the University wasn’t seeing, I think, the benefit of [Hill Farm], so selling it to students and faculty at LSU really gets people hearing about it and maybe more people growing the food, which is what we want,” Pittman says. “We want more people to know about local, sustainable agriculture.”
In addition to the five students and their adviser, students from the Sustainable Agriculture Club and other student volunteers help make the farmer’s market possible. The market is always looking for more volunteers who want to get farming experience, Bruno says.
This week, the farmer’s market offered a variety of microgreens, hydroponic lettuce, field lettuce and field mixes. Pittman says that as the students continue researching and growing different produce, they hope to offer more produce every week. In the future, they hope to offer more seasonable produce throughout the year, Bruno says.
Horticulture and sustainable agriculture professor Carl Motsenbocker is the adviser of the project.
While he oversees his students’ work, Motsenbocker says the students do everything from “seed to market”: learning how to grow produce, keeping track of their selling efforts and developing protocol to keep the market running. Both students and consumers benefit from the market.
“[It’s important for] students to get experience, for people to get more local food. For me, it’s all about local, understanding where our food comes from,” Motsenbocker says.
The students involved with the market hope to showcase the importance of keeping Hill Farm on the University’s campus through the weekly farmer’s market, and to have it become an ongoing project for future horticulture and plant and soil systems students.
