ECOLOGY OF FOOD By Dr. Deirdre Murphy
“Tell me a story,” noted ecologist and Hudson Valley local Thomas Berry demanded in his environmental studies classic, The Dream of the Earth. It’s a tale of where we are and how we got here. What he was asking for was an inclusive story of the Hudson Valley. Nearly 40 years later, students in the Ecology of Food class are reading, living, and thinking through Berry’s call to ecological engagement. While classrooms are wonderful places of learning, we cannot fully understand the ecosystem of which we are a part until we are out in it. That is why, at the tail end of winter and just as we are starting to tip into the earliest moments of spring, students in the Ecology of Food class can be found out on campus beneath the maple trees—drilling holes into trunks, fitting spiles, and mounting buckets. For two weeks after that, students stomp through drifts of snow, skid across ice slicks, or squish through mud to collect the sap that is then boiled down 14 ciaalumninetwork.com
into syrup. And soon after that project ends a new one begins. Seeds for the campus Teaching Garden must be chosen and then germinated under grow lights. As spring wears on, students clean up the beds in the garden as well as the berry and fig bushes on the hill behind it. They check on our perennials—herbs that students will soon use to cook with at home and in their classes—and plant the new vegetable and herb starts that we’d raised. They make sure our composting system is in order and ready to continue the job of turning waste into soil nutrients. And soon, harvesting is upon us! First, they harvest the early greens and herbs, and then the berries, radishes, carrots, and beets. After that comes tomatoes, corn, and potatoes, and finally, the fall crops. Before we know it, winter will be here and the whole cycle will slow for a short time before it all starts up again. And while all of these activities might sound like a bit of an agrarian fantasy, they reveal only some