CSA PROJECT PUTS STUDENT-GROWN FOOD ON COMMUNITY TABLES

For years, students in COLSA’s Farm to You NH program — a two-semester course that gives them firsthand experience in sustainable agriculture — have helped grow a variety of fruits and vegetables that are delivered year-round to UNH Dining, UNH Conferences and Catering and the UNH Dairy Bar. Thanks to a new initiative, last summer participants were also able to put food directly on tables outside the university.

The program partnered with the families involved in the marriage and family therapy master’s degree program offered by the College of Liberal Arts to launch a community-supported agriculture (CSA) pilot, providing fresh fruits and vegetables to the participating families at no cost.

The students, who are training to become counselors, coordinated and executed all aspects of the 10-week CSA under the guidance of horticultural program coordinator Susan Soucy ’13: They chose what to plant, managed the plants’ growth and made sure the produce was delivered at peak freshness.

Participating families received a wide variety of produce, including tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, squash, radishes, strawberries and blueberries. Soucy says that adding the CSA project to the course curriculum went even better than expected: “We got a lot of really great feedback from the families, and we’re definitely planning to make it an annual collaboration.”