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Summer on the Campus Farm: Learning While Growing Food

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George Carollo and Sachi Takahaschi-Rial pull weeds at the Duke Campus Farm. Photo by Leah Montgomery

Wearing borrowed gloves and dusty sneakers, Sachi Takahaschi-Rial and George Carollo piled freshly pulled weeds into a wheelbarrow and hauled them to a compost pile at the rear of the Duke Campus Farm.

A friendly couple from California, they were pitching in on their second visit to the farm.

"I wanted to volunteer at the farm so I can feel closer to where my food is coming from," said Takahaschi-Rial, a  master's degree candidate in public policy at Duke.

Takahaschi-Rial  said she can remember having a garden in her backyard, growing up in Sacramento, neighbors who distributed surplus produce to friends and family and frequenting her local farmer's market.

"In modern society, you never have to see the people that grow our food; you never see the dirt that it comes out of," said Takahaschi-Rial. "I think there's something really fulfilling in actually being a part of that process."

Billy Roddy, a summer employee at Duke Farm, is a rising computer science and economics junior from Boston.

"I needed a summer job and chose this one because you get to work outside," said Roddy.

As he pulled onto the small dirt road next to the one-acre farming plot, Roddy said his job consists of whatever needs to be done around the farm that day.

"We do a lot of bed prepping and weeding," said Roddy, pulling a baseball cap over his head. "We just started harvesting a few weeks ago."

Roddy said the farm's main focus right now is harvesting produce for the weekly Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA) that allows participants to pick up $20 of fresh produce at Duke Gardens on Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. or Fridays at the Duke Farmer's Market from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Billy Roddy

Billy Roddy says he likes that work at the Duke Campus Farm allows him to be outdoors in the summer. Photo by Leah Montgomery

Overseeing Billy's duties is new farm manager Saskia Cornes. Originally from England, Cornes moved to America with her family, migrating to California and eventually New York.

Cornes worked at her local California farmer's market in high school and said she enjoyed being around the people.

"They were the best adults I knew," she said as she passed out the stirrup hoes used for weeding the gardens.

Formerly a freelance food writer for New York's Edible Brooklyn, Cornes was one of 39 participants in the six-month apprenticeship program at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California Santa Cruz in 2010. She enjoyed the lifestyle of the program so much that she stayed a year longer to teach, making her more than capable of managing the Duke Campus Farm and producing new ways to keep Duke sustainable.

Cornes advises all local community members to come out and get involved in the farming process.

"Just try it once and then you'll be hooked," said Takahaschi-Rial.

Duke Farm workdays are held Thursdays and Sundays from 6 to 8 p.m.  at the farm, 4934 Friends School Road, southwest of campus.  Volunteers can find out more information at http://sites.duke.edu/farm/events/community-workdays/. Carpooling to the farm from Duke East or West Campus is also available by emailing your name, phone number and pick-up location to dukecampusfarm@gmail.com.

Leah Montgomery is a rising NCCU senior who is working this summer as an intern in the Duke Office of News and Communications.