Sustainable Ag Project (SAP) @ UMD

SAP@UMD: Leave it better than when you got here!

September, 2009. The Sustainable Ag Profect at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (SAP@UMD) is bringing an agriculture focus on the UMD farm for education, demonstration and production.

SAP@UMD is a collaborative effort on the part of UMD students, faculty, staff and area farmers. Planning is underway for laying out a ten acre field that will contain vegetable fields, irrigation ponds, wildlife corridors, and student gardens. Conceptualization for Spring, 2010 planting is underway. We are also surveying the partial renovation of what was once the largest apple orchard in Northeast Mnnesota on the former grounds of the Northeast Branch Experiment Station.

SAP@UMD is an experiential field site to educate students, the university community, and the broader region about sustainable agriculture. Participants can work with biophysical, sociocultural and political economic problems and solutions related to food, farm and gardening, integrating participatory and action oriented scholarship, learning, and teaching.

The applied social skills, cultural knowledge, and biophysical understanding around food, farm and gardening are more important than ever. Most of today's students won't be farmers; yet many will, many more will be gardeners, and all are eaters. Indeed, 'foodskills' are liberal arts skills, in the sense that they are foundational for healthy individual lives, communities and our society as a whole. Student interest in food, farming and gardening is very high. We see this project as one of many ways for UMD to become an institutional leader in the necessary social transformations ahead of us as we move toward sustainable communities.

SAP@UMD has many facets. Coursework integration is underway, examining the botanical history of the area and plotting out sustainable methods for integrating agriculture with wildlife. Seeds and student hands will be in the ground by Spring, 2010. We are exploring methods for renovating a four acre abandoned apple orchard. We seek to create a student-centered social enterprise that integrates collaborate learning with vegetable and fruit production and processing, bringing fresh local food and food knowledge to campus. A 'wiki' will be used to document student and faculty activities surrounding SAP@UMD, communicating information about the project. And we plan to seek USDA and other grants to grow the project.

If you are interested in participating in this collaborative project, plant an email at rhanson2@d.umn.edu. Let us know what you think!

STUDENTS: a variety of opportunities for student coursework and internships will be available; and if you simply want to volunteer, that is possible as well. Activities will be year-round . Volunteer Schedules will be posted by early Spring, 2010.

FACULTY: use the SAP site as a laboratory for your courses in any number of academic concentrations. Consider starting a research project on the site. Join a faculty team.

STAFF: partner with us to help close the loop for UMD while creating important learning opportunities for students.

AREA FARMERS: bring your experiential knowledge to a group of food & knowledge hungry students!

ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE & HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS & STUDENTS: Contact us for opportunities for collaboration, learning & eating.

Farm Background
The UMD Farm homestead is located at 4907 Jean Duluth Road (just before Riley Road), in Rice Lake Township, St. Louis County, approximately 4 miles from the UMD campus. (A Google Map of the farm can be found at the link listed below.) The UMD Farm consists of ca. 160 acres remaining from an original 240 acres, with Amity Creek bordering the south of the property. The UMD Farm has its beginnings in 1912 as one of six University of Minnesota Agricultural Experimental Stations across Minnesota. It remained active in applied agricultural research through 1966, and some activities continued into the mid 1970s. As such, it was an important piece of the agricultural infrastructure of Minnesota in general and the Lake Superior bioregion specifically across generations.

The homestead grounds include buildings which originally were for dairy, chickens and pigs. Three homes were originally part of the homestead, which contained offices and residences. The buildings are now used for storage. Currently, the UMD Biology Department uses parts of the homestead area for botanical research, and the UMD Building and Maintenance use areas of the property for storage.

SAP@UMD consist of stewardship of 10 acres along Riley Road just to the left of the Lake Park Little League Fields/Model Airplane Runway (on the Google map: the brown stubble area). This area has been used for Timothy Grass production for many years. It is bordered by a 10 acre White Pine Forest (not old growth), which abuts up to the remaining UMD Farm property. In addition, we are stewards of the abandoned orchard on site, planning for a three year renovation cycle that will bring part of the orchard back into production.

GOOGLE Map of UMD Farm:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=46.867032,-92.052335&z=15&t=h&hl=en

MAPQUEST map and driving directions from UMD campus:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1pn=university+of+minnesota+duluth&2c=Duluth&2s=MN&2a=4907+Jean+Duluth+Road

Carpe Victus!

(seize the sustainable life!)

For more information, email Randel Hanson at rhanson2@d.umn.edu