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Oxford College Farm grows produce, student knowledge
Oxford College farm grows produce, students’ agricultural knowledge
By SARAH DAVIS
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Blueberries, asian pears, arugula, carrots, bok choy and various heirloom varieties of apples: these are just a few of the crops that are grown at Oxford College’s organic farm.
The farm serves as a site for community growth, not just through the fresh produce it produces but also the educational opportunities it provides.
After a generous alumnus donated 11 acres of land for an organic farm in 2011, the college’s lead farmer and educator Daniel Parson launched farming operations in 2014.
In the years since, the farm has grown substantially, with half of its food going to the dining halls at Oxford College, Emory College of Arts and Sciences and Emory Hospital. The remaining produce is sold to the Oxford community, at the Oxford and Emory farmer’s markets and donated to local food banks.
Parson’s journey to the College Farm was a long one. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Clemson University, Parson dedicated his time outdoors, backpacking. And, while he enjoyed these experiences, he found himself conflicted by the ways in which the activity conflicted with his mission of environmental stewardship.
“When I came home I couldn’t stay out forever,” Parson said. “I had to come back and go to the grocery store and load up with more food and go back out and feel self-sufficient. I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t really self sufficiency. I need to learn to grow my own food.’”
With this realization, Parson went to work for four years on a farm in Dawsonville, where he learned “the ropes” of organic farming. However, for many of the farm workers, it was their second career, and Parson found they didn’t necessarily possess some of the agricultural knowledge he wanted to learn, such as soil quality, the impact of insects on farming and crop diseases. So, he went back to Clemson for a masters degree in plant and environmental science.
After working on a farm in an Atlanta housing community, Gaia Gardens, and establishing his own organic garden in South Carolina, he heard about the farm being started at the College.
“I thought, ‘This is perfect: I get to start another farm, I get to work with students and the community and the campus,’” Parson said. “The size of it was just right, and the goals that they had were just right, so it all worked out and I’ve been here since then.”
The farm has five full-time staff workers, including Parson, and around 20 student workers. Additionally, about 100 students and Oxford community members volunteer their time at the farm annually.
Parson said that their student worker staff is the backbone of the farm’s operations.
“It’s not just working one day; it’s seeing through the season,” Parson said. “So, any given day, they may feel like they’re doing a random job … but, by the end of the school year, they’ve seeded crops, they’ve planted crops in the ground, they’ve weeded crops, they’ve harvested them, they’ve done all the things that need to be done.”
These kinds of experiences are part of the farm’s mission to educate students about the importance of organic farming, with student farmer Jordan Hayes calling the program “a haven for learning.”
Alongside Parson, Field Manager and Educator Catherine Reuter teaches farming methods to student workers and provides educational experiences for a variety of college interests, from film to economics to sociology to environmental science. Reuter, who joined the farm in 2018, said that her role as a farming educator has made her a “better farmer.”
“You don’t know anything as well until you’ve taught it to somebody else,” Reuter said.
“You realize all the gaps in your knowledge and all the assumptions you have made. Every time I have to teach something to somebody I get better at doing it and I get better at explaining it to people and just understanding the nuances of what I’m doing.”
From the basics, like learning how to use a shovel, to more technical skills, like how to plant and weed, Reuter uses her knowledge base to help students see the value of farming.
Hayes recalled coming into the farm lacking a full understanding of how produce was grown or even how it looked outside of a shelf in a
Field Manager and Educator Catherine Reuter stands at Oxford College’s organic farm, where she teaches farming methods.
Sarah Davis | The News
grocery store.
“Some of the foods and vegetables that I ate on a daily basis, I didn’t know how they actually grew,” Hayes said. “I only saw it in the packaging, so that was really interesting to see how sweet potatoes actually grow in the ground.”
Reuter previously worked for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, studying non-game aquatics. In this position, she helped identify how farming pollutants harmed fish populations.
“We knew what was hurting them, but my work wasn’t helping them,” Reuter said.
“What we needed was to use the land better.”
After making the realization she wanted to be “part of the effort to improve things,” Reuter turned her focus to sustainable agriculture, going on to get a master’s degree in freshwater ecology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, eventually leading her to the Oxford farm. There, she said she finally feels like she’s making the impact she wanted.
“Our farm is small, but farming covers a huge landscape proportion and every inch that we manage more sustainably is protecting everything downstream,” Reuter said.
This natural preservation includes taking care of native plants in the woods behind the farm. Recently, the Farm partnered with the city of Oxford’s Pollinator Project to weed out invasive species and allow for native species to flourish. Reuter worked with students to educate them on the history of these native species.
Student farmer Emily Oliver Ferron said that this up-close education brings a certain significance to the issues of pollution and loss of native species that cannot be gained from reading a textbook.
“[Reuter] is one of those people who knows everything about everything,” Ferron said. “She’ll just list off the Georgian natural history, dating back to pre-colonial indigenous practices. She’ll tell us about the erosion that was the result of colonization and the clear cutting of the Georgia forests, but she’ll do so while she’s pointing to the proof of it in the creek.”
Ferron came to Emory for its prestigious healthcare program.
Her work on the farm has brought a new perspective to how she views medicine.
“Learning about healthcare through a more preventative standpoint has been super eye-opening,” Ferron said. “You eat healthy foods, you’re healthier, so you should go to the doctor regularly but you’re not going to need as much emergency care. It makes sense that I would come to Emory for its medical reputation and learn so much about medicine but in a very unconventional classroom.”
While the farm serves as a site of education about organic farming for many, it also is a place of respite for students facing heavy loads of school work.
“The farm gives me a sense of serenity and calmness out of all the hectic things that happen in college,” Hayes said. “I love being around nature and the farm gives me the opportunity to do so.”
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