What Colleges Can Bring to the Table

When it comes to encouraging the development of a healthy and sustainable food-production system in the United States, colleges are in a unique position to nourish young minds, both nutritionally and intellectually, in ways that can change things for the better.

As large institutions that supply food in quantity, colleges can use their purchasing power to bolster the economic life of their communities by supporting local and regional farmers, whose numbers are declining around the United States. As educators, these colleges are also able to provide their students perspective on, as well as training in, sustainable methods of farming and food production, offerings sorely needed in a food-supply chain increasingly dominated by large corporations.

The industrialized food system that supplies most grocery stores and institutional larders is run by and for ever-more-consolidated food-production companies that have little interest in maintaining thriving local economies or making customers' health a priority. Profit is the primary concern, and the social value of food is widely ignored.

http://chronicle.com/article/What-Colleges-Can-Bring-to-the/131923/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en