Environment Consortium Sets Up in Cafeteria

In the seventh Annual Environmental Consortium on Oct. 15, SUNY Rockland gave its support by offering its cafeteria to the eco-friendly community that is the consortium. Helping organize the event was RCC's Organic Gardening Club.

The consortium stressed the importance of the amount of food locally grown. It's also attempting to support local growers, both organic and not, by involving universities. They also brought in local growers, organic industries, and environmental activists to try and persuade RCC to invest in the local food shed.

Those of the Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges and Universities intend to use higher education for such a purpose. In addition, the college is the next target college of the consortium. The Consortium uses the intellectual and physical resources of higher education to help the ecosystem. By utilizing the teaching and research aspects, an interdisciplinary collaboration can be achieved, with RCC as a member.

Donna Kowal, the Consortium's and Pace University's Applied Environmental Studies Program Coordinator, said that there are fifty five other institutions involved and each annual meeting was an effort, "to bring people together, collaborate, share ideas and find new and innovative ways to bring local food to these institutions and communities."

Local food industries have made attempts at removing cost barriers. Winter Sun Farms, another company present at the constortium, supply off-season produce to many industries and institutions, such as SUNY New Paltz and Vassar College. Winter Sun is a collection of local farms, and is a distribution industry that quick freezes produce to sell off season. Jim Hyland, President of Winter Sun Farms, offered up that, "Buying from us is also buying locally."

Kowal also said that there are certain obstacles barring such progress. "We're used to variety; students demand a wide range of food."

"There's always a need for industrialized food," commented environmental writer for the New York Times "Dot Earth" blog, Andrew Revkin. "Not everyone lives in an area where organic or local is possible," he further stated.

A major theme of the event was quality. Kowal, Hyland, and Revkin all said similarly that local produce is in one aspect or another "better" than produce grown abroad. The ongoing issue of additive hormones and genetically altered foods raises questions about quality.

"If you turn over the package and it says China, are you going to go to China and look at what's going into your food? No. But if you turn it over and it says a farm in Hillsdale you can go see for yourself," noted Hyland. "If you have better produce you have better taste," he stated.

The other aspect that the Consortium uses to hype locally grown is the effect it has on the economy. Supporting farms is supporting business, and encouraging business will create more jobs, more industry leads to more money. While some may not see it that way, they may just see it as paying more for their groceries, increasing the local food shed plays a better part on the ecosystem than relying on massive industrialized farming, and that's what the consortium wants RCC students to recognize.