Farm2Work: Service Learning and Economic Localization

In a capstone honors senior seminar themed "Issues in Global Economics and Environment," students were required to devise, research, and implement a service learning project. Given a climate of growing concerns over food safety, the loss of independent farms to consolidating agribusiness interests, and the environmental impacts of decades of industrial agriculture, a project aimed at supporting the local-foods movement seemed an ideal choice. Farm2Work is an on-line farmers' market that connects UCA employees and students to local farmers and their goods weekly throughout the year, with the special feature of workplace delivery of customer orders. To give the project a life beyond these seniors' graduation, a student club was formed to take over administration of the program. By engaging underclassmen in the effort, the club involves students in the many facets of the university workplace and its personalities (from senior administrators all the way down to physical plant and housekeeping personnel) as well as, of course, area farmers and local-foods activists.