Fall is my favorite season. I love how the brightly colored trees pop against the blue skies. I love the sound of leaves rustling beneath my feet. I love the excitement of a new school year juxtaposed with the shortening days and the threat of winter. My favorite part of fall, however, is the apples. Their sweetness cannot be compared; their crunch cannot be characterized. They are perfect. Perhaps the most impressive attribute, however, is their source. The apples served in our dining halls are local, grown in our very own state of Vermont.
Middlebury College Dining Services is committed to serving local food to students, and items such as applesauce and dairy products, are locally sourced. One-fifth of the dining budget is currently spent on buying food that is grown or processed in Vermont and one-third is spent on “local” food, or food that comes from within a 250-mile radius. However, many students desire more. Last year, nearly 75 percent of you said that you would support the College increasing its dining budget in order to provide more locally-sourced foods. The local food movement is growing exponentially on this campus, and the SGA is committed to bringing more local food into our dining halls, but there are some important questions we must ask first.
As a campus, we need to think about what we’re trying to accomplish through this goal. Are we trying to care for the environment? Stimulate the local economy? Protect producers of food from poverty? Do the phrases ‘just food,’ ‘sustainable food,’ or ‘organic food’ better achieve these goals? Do we value fair-trade coffee as much as getting milk from down the road? What are we willing to sacrifice in exchange for sustainable food? Do we want less red meat in the dining halls? Should we commit to only serving local meat? Do we want to trade vegetal variety for Vermont-grown produce? We all want to be good stewards of the environment, but at what cost? Are we willing to change our meal plan in order to afford more sustainable food? Let’s take time to consider these questions, strengthen the food movement as a whole and educate ourselves about these different issues. We must be informed in order to make these difficult decisions.
In the coming weeks, the SGA will be conducting a comprehensive survey on everything food-related to help us answer some of those questions. We aim to ask more questions, develop pragmatic goals, and create a practical plan of action to achieve them.
But we need your help. Let us know what’s important to you. Email us at sga@middlebury.edu, write on our Facebook, tweet us @Midd_SGA.
