Student Perceptions and Constraints for Community-Supported Agriculture

in the Dartmouth Food System

by

Lucia Pohlman

A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts in the Department of Environmental Studies

Dartmouth College

June 2015

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author.

1 

2

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Chapter 1: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Chapter 2: Background and Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Part 1: Issues in Industrial Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Section A: Ecological Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Section B: Economic Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Section C: Social Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Part 2: How University Campuses Can Leverage Change . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Part 3: History of Food Projects at Dartmouth College . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Part 4: Exploring Paths Towards Sustainable Food at Dartmouth . . . . . . . .

29 Section A: Investigating Local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Section B: Investigating Community-Supported Agriculture . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 3: Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Part 1: Study Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Part 2: Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Part 3: Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter 4: Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Part 1: Univariate Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51 Part 2: Bivariate Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Part 3: Multivariate Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 5: Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Part 1: Factors Leading to Interest and Disinterest in CSAs at Dartmouth College 59 Part 2: CSA Features Relevant and Important to Dartmouth Students . . . . . .

62 Section A: Season and Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Section B: Types of Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Section C: Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Section D: Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Section E: Other Important Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Chapter 6: Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Part 1: Practical Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Part 2: Limitations of the Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Part 3: Ideas for Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Appendix 1: Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Appendix 2: Stata statistics commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

3

4

Acknowledgements

This project has been a year long journey through which I’ve begun to understand

institutional change, hone my critical thinking, and learn the dedication required to make

change. I want to offer many thanks to the Dartmouth Sustainability office for shaping my

research and providing me with the on the ground know how to navigate the Dartmouth

bureaucracy, to Michael Cox, my advisor, who put up with my ideological battles and kept

me grounded in practicality based on fact not conjecture, to Dartmouth Dining Services

who has graciously met with me, been receptive to my research and worked with me to

create change, and lastly my student allies who have inspired me with their work on food at

Dartmouth and given me a cause to fight for. I also want to thank the Stamps Scholarship

foundation whose gracious award helped me fund my research and opened doors to

conferences that guided my project. And of course I would like to thank my mother for

feeding my intellectual curiosities since I was born!

5

6

Abstract

This thesis is motivated by the externalities of industrial agricultural and explores

how campuses can act as leverage points to enacting positive change. By first looking at

what other universities are doing and then zeroing in on Dartmouth and its history with

sustainable food, I examine how local Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs

can incite food system reform, as well as generate a host of other positive externalities. In

order to mold CSAs to the unique student population of Dartmouth College, I conducted a

survey to reveal student preferences on food, cooking, and DDS. The results of this survey

show that CSA interest was influenced primarily by respondent’s gender, living situation,

and their personal desire to cook more. Students cited CSA’s positive externalities, ease of

getting produce, and quality of product as motivations for purchase, and cost, infeasibility

and apathy as reasons for disinterest. The survey also exposed preferences about features

of a potential CSA, suggesting that students may use less produce than a weekly CSA

delivery provides, as well as clear preferences for immediately edible or easy to cook

produce including fruits and berries, salad supplies and eggs, among other specific CSA

features that students found relevant. This thesis explores those results and their practical

implications for an ideal CSA that could be instituted at Dartmouth College.

7

8

Introduction

This thesis concerns bringing more local food into the Dartmouth food system, a

change motivated by the negative externalities of industrial agriculture. I will first provide

a rough sketch of the consequences of the conventional food system and then present the

argument that learning institutions such as Dartmouth are ideal places to be making

food-system change, provide some examples of work being done at peer institutions, and

then go into some detail about the history of food projects that have already been

completed at Dartmouth. Next I will describe a variety of alternatives to the conventional

food system, focusing on the local food approach. Lastly I will define Community-Supported

Agriculture and how it could be the next step towards moving Dartmouth’s food system

towards sustainability. To test for such a project’s feasibility I conducted a student survey

at Dartmouth in order to answer the following research questions:

1. What factors lead to interest or disinterest in signing up for a CSA program for

Dartmouth students?

2. What structures/factors relevant to a Dartmouth CSA should be prioritized when implementing a pilot CSA program?

9

10

Background and Literature Review Part 1: Issues in Industrial Agriculture

In a discussion about food and sustainability it is important to first capture the

status of the current food system and its effects on environmental, economic, and social

welfare. Our current food system has become a network of large scale production farms

characterized by monocultures, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and heavy-duty

machinery. These features of the conventional food system have changed how agriculture

impacts the soil and surrounding environment as well as the economy and the people who

grow and eat its food. The scale and approach of industrial agriculture has reduced the

cost-per-output of major crops, but such benefits have come at the price of soil breakdown,

soil erosion, fertilizer runoff, pesticide contamination, and water shortages. These

environmental costs are embedded within a larger distribution network characterized by

inefficient subsidies, fossil fuel consumption, and food waste at every step in the supply

chain. Beyond these measurable environmental and economic costs are decreases in U.S.

health outcomes, the quality and taste of food, food culture, and sense of community; all of

which are associated with the conventional food system.

Industrial agriculture co-developed with the Industrial Revolution but it gained

prominence after World War Two when the United States was left with excess industrial

capacity for creating ammonium (Dahlberg 1979). In this Green Revolution, with larger

amounts of energy and nutrient inputs American farms began producing much more food

than ever before, turning what used to be a decentralized network of small family-owned

11

businesses into a large industrialized production system characterized by high yields, high

inputs, and deleterious ecological consequences (Pohlman 2012). Farmers have reduced

the diversity of crops they grow to get higher yields and now a great deal of America’s

farms consist of endless acres of land planted with a single type of crop. Monocultures have

no biodiversity, are demanding on soils, and require chemical inputs for long-term

productivity. This system of large industrial monocultures produces food for the nation’s

supermarkets, restaurants, and large institutions. While alternative producers exist, this

conventional food system is what feeds large institutional buyers like Dartmouth, and as

such must be understood and analyzed in order to motivate any beneficial alternatives.

Section A: Ecological Effects

Industrial agriculture is dependent on three main inputs—fertilizer, pesticides and

water—all three of which have unique environmental consequences. One of the major

fertilizers in industrial agriculture, nitrogen, creates problems throughout its lifecycle . To

be produced nitrogen fertilizer requires large amounts fossil fuels in the form of natural

gas, an input that degrades local air and water quality during its mining and combustion.

During its application an inevitable portion of the nitrogen fertilizer will run-off into the

local watershed creating a surplus of previously limiting nutrients. This overabundance

leads to water pollution, algae blooms, and eutrophication; all of which threaten the water’s

ability to support life (Pohlman 2012). Beyond leading to pollution, the application of

nitrogen fertilizer leads to nitrous oxide emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas that is

contributing to climate change. Additionally due to frequent applications and

12

monocultures’ constant demand for the same soil nutrients the structure and integrity of

the soil begins to break down, a precursor to soil erosion, which not only threatens the

future viability of the soil, but also pollutes surrounding water sources by depositing large

amounts of particulate matter into nearby streams and lakes (Pohlman 2012). In fact, "84%

of all endangered or threatened plants and animal species were listed in part due to

agricultural activities," a good portion due to the massive environmental footprint of

fertilizers and soil degradation (Defenders of Wildlife 2005). Fertilizers damage natural

ecosystems in both their production and in their use and eventual deposition into water

sources, and these consequences are unsustainable (Pohlman 2012).

The use of pesticides and herbicides is another environmentally damaging practice

in modern farms. In order for monoculture fields to be productive in the long term they

have to successfully overcome weed and pest infestations that are much worse than those

on farms growing many crop species together (Hesterman 2011, 78). To prevail over these

unrelenting pest and weed infestations, monocultures require chemical applications in an

ever-increasing fashion, often creating resistant insect and weed populations that only

responds to chemicals that are harsher to the environment (Pohlman 2012). Pesticides

negatively impact non-target species living in the crop, the farmers and laborers that apply

them, and the water they eventually wash into (Pohlman 2012). The EPA states that

agriculture is currently the largest contributor to water pollution (EPA 2012). Agricultural

chemicals are prevalent in our water and our food, and this is dangerous to both human

health and the health and natural value of our ecosystems (Pohlman 2012).

13

In addition to fertilizers and pesticides, the water demands of modern agriculture

are unsustainable. The effects of irrigation vary by location and season, having minimal to

extreme effects on local groundwater levels (Pohlman 2012). Overall however, agricultural

irrigation accounts for 31% of all water withdrawn and approximately 80% of all

consumptive water use in the US (Barber 2009)(USDA 2013). Such massive water demands

threaten to drain local aquifers and other fresh-water sources, leaving ecosystems and

human residents with massive water shortages. This problem is typified in California,

where massive farm operations in the desert-like central valley have drained local water

sources. Water shortages have negatively impacted the wildlife of that watershed, but also

forced municipalities to find water elsewhere, costing taxpayers billions (McWilliams 2009,

193). Agriculture can damage local watersheds and place higher demands on surrounding

areas, threatening their watersheds as well (Weber 2009, 131).

In addition to these effects which result from growing crops, there is a whole other

layer to environmental degradation caused by raising animals for meat production.

Globally, agriculture and livestock are the largest source of methane emissions due to

confined animal feedlot operations that create literal lagoons of animal manure (EPA,

2015). The disconnection of crop and animal production is a major problem because it

creates nutrient shortages and nutrient pollution where there was once harmony. Because

manure is accumulated away from crop production it is concentrated and dealt with as

toxic waste, while crop fields are being forced to apply greater amounts of nutrient

additives to maintain yields. This disconnect as well as issues in animal welfare, hormone

14

use, improper feed, water contamination, and air pollution are all problems associated with

industrial meat production.

All of these environmental issues take on a particular urgency in light of climate

change and the unpredictability of water and weather as well as the increased fragility of

our planet’s biodiversity. Climate change alters the very niche that agriculture has come to

thrive in and will present great challenges to the farmers of the world as they need to apply

even more inputs to their fields to support their crops. In light of an agricultural system

that is presently beyond its limits—how much water it can take from its watersheds, how

much fertilizer and pesticide runoff it can absorb, and how much soil depletion it can

endure—climate change is a serious concern as it calls for an even lighter environmental

footprint while agriculture is already struggling to scale back its effects to manageable

levels. Climate change can decrease the allowable threshold of resource use while at the

same time requiring farmers to do more to keep their fields alive in the context of heat

swells, floods, droughts and natural disasters (EPA 2013). This combination of increased

stressors and decreased resources puts farmers in a situation where they are unlikely to

succeed.

Section B: Economic Effects

The ecological effects of industrial agriculture are not its only flaw. While the

massive industrial system of production appears to be cheap and efficient, it is dependent

on government subsidies that artificially deflate food prices by aiding farms that grow cash

crops (corn, soy, wheat, rice and cotton), have large acreages, and those that are

15

considering making capital investments in even greater mechanization and input

dependence (Pohlman 2012). Taxpayer money is being spent to make industrial

agriculture economically feasible despite its numerous negative externalities. Farm

subsidies amount to $25 billion dollars annually are damaging the environment and

harming consumer health (Riedl 2007). The money spent on cash crops benefits large

farms that can quickly spit out large quantities of commodity crops, running smaller farms

out of business (Krotz 2011). To be profitable within the modern food system farmers are

adapting their practices to be eligible for these subsidies, and are effectively being forced

into a “spiraling cycle of debt and corporate dependency inherent in capital-intensive

industrial production” when competing with larger, more mechanized farms (Macias 2008,

1087). Both consumers and farmers lose out in this scenario, leaving many farm workers in

the industrial agricultural system with little job security and annual incomes of $11,250

which is only $400 dollars above the poverty line (NFWM 2009). One of the negative

aspects of industrial agriculture and leverage points for positive change is the economic

waste of agricultural subsidies.

While subsidies unfairly tip the scales, the sheer scale and throughput of

conventional food creates another economic consequence: food waste that could be

revenue for farmers and distributors, and savings for consumers. Waste starts at the farm

where one-time harvests fail to absorb the early and late-to-ripen produce. If plants within

a large operation are not mature during harvesting they are left to rot as they missed their

only opportunity to be collected (Bloom 2010). The next stage is transport, where over

long distances food can become damaged or rotten. It is important to note that at this stage

16

there is not only food waste but a massive waste of energy and fossil fuels from

refrigeration and fuel use. While carbon emissions from food miles tend to be smaller than

carbon emissions that take place on the farm, they still account for 11% of total emissions

from food production (Weber & Matthews 2008). The next stage of waste occurs at the

supermarket where “ugly” produce is rejected or left unsold due to strict requirements of

product size, shape, color and texture (Bloom 2010) Supermarkets also have more food

than they ever expect to sell to ensure that the shelves are well stocked for consumer

impressions (Bloom 2010). While that business strategy may make them money, it wastes

food and doesn’t reflect the unpredictable realities and fluctuations of food availability. The

last stage of waste occurs with the consumer who may not use all they buy.

This waste adds up: “roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is

lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year” (Gustavsson et al.

2001). The nature of this industrial supply chain disconnects producers and consumers

with formalized predefined contracts and do not adapt to the variable aspects of food

production both in bounty and loss. This is a massive waste of economic resources for

farmers, distributors, vendors and consumers who are paying for food that will never be

eaten.

Section C: Social Effects

Clearly agriculture is deeply connected to environmental and economic systems, but

it is also embedded within a system of people who grow and consume its products. People

are affected by food in regard to their health and weight, their ability to be self-sufficient

17

and cook for themselves, their profession, their connection to community, their

understanding of the natural world and natural processes, and a sense of appreciation and

gratitude that quality food can elicit. Some of these effects are measurable and quantifiable

while others are more psychological and anecdotal but all of these effects have been noted

by the empirical food literature.

Take health for example. US farm subsidies artificially deflate the price of major cash

crops, providing food companies with an incentive to create food products from these

cheap, nutritionally deficient inputs. 90% of the $25 billion spent annually in farm

subsidies goes to major cash crops—not to supporting and reducing the prices of healthy

fruits and vegetables (Riedl 2007). Because corn and soy have become so cheap, the food

industry can easily use them as the source of processed additives, syrups, and starches,

products that negatively impact human health (Fields 2004). Farm subsidies are not only

supporting farms that create negative environmental externalities, but they actively

support inputs to the western world’s health epidemic.

The growing crisis of obesity and poor health in the United States might be

compounded by the lack of nutrients available in today’s produce, a declining trend that

has been observed over the past 50 years with the advent of industrial agriculture (Davis et

al 2004). In comparison to organic crops, conventional crops have been scientifically

proven to have lesser concentrations of nutritionally significant minerals as well as higher

amounts of toxic heavy metals and nitrates (Worthington 2001). As seen below in Figure 1,

industrial agriculture is creating nutrient-deficient crops, and this combined with the

18

subsidization and overproduction of unhealthy cash crops, is leading to poor health

outcomes in the United States, a major source of dissatisfaction and pain in our country.

Figure 1: Mean % Additional Mineral Content in Organic Compared to Conventional Crops

(Worthington 2001)

There are other social welfare concerns that have more to do with ethics and

preferences. Macias notes a sense of “hopelessness and despair resulting from a lack of

social integration or meaningful connection to other human beings” (2008, 1089). He

connects this trend to the “lower levels of civic engagement and social capital” (2008,

1089). Food used to be the locus of such civic engagement and it created a sense of

connection to the local community and environment that produced the food, but in our

globalized system those relationships have waned. In comparison to anonymous

supermarket vegetables, farmers markets and other direct-to-market sales create

face-to-face interactions that inspire local pride and citizen participation (Macias 2008). In

the current globalized food system in which citizens are disconnected from their food

19

producers, the natural world, and what was needed to create the food, consumers make

choices that may not be best for their bodies, for the farmers or the land.

20

Part 2: How University Campuses Can Leverage Change

College campuses can be a ripe place for interventions into the food system. They

have a scale of production that can be impactful, a social mission to educate, and the duty of

caring for their students. There has been a good deal of research on how college campuses

can take responsibility for their environmental footprint by making their interactions in

their globalized and localized food system more sustainable. Peggy Bartlett provided an

excellent overview of campus sustainable food projects, and of all the sources that

discussed university food systems, Bartlett (2011) truly motivated the need for change in

that area. She confirmed the externalities discussed in the Part 1 of the background and

motivated her arguments with the results of campus audits which show that food

production and transportation are major greenhouse gas contributors (2011). She also

cited health problems associated with conventional food, the threat of climate change, and

the practical point that conventional food simply does not taste as good. In response to

these problems, Bartlett argues that food is an ideal leverage point for sustainability on

campuses due to its “economic clout, corporate connections, and emotional resonance with

family tradition, place and identity” (2011, 102). Bartlett identifies four main leverage

points for change within campus food systems.

The first concerns innovations within campus kitchen operations, menus and

procurement. Bartlett argues that college dining services have the capacity to impact their

local and regional food systems due to their size and economic clout. This clout allows

university dining programs to incubate new nodes in an alternative food chain if they

change their practices (Bartlett 2011). Additionally, by changing their purchasing contracts

21

with broadline distributors, institutions can put constraints on existing corporate systems

(2011). The second leverage point deals with academic and co-curricular programs and

their ability to evaluate, disseminate, and legitimize critiques of the conventional food

system, both in the classroom but also during campus events dealing with food and

agriculture (2011). The third point of intervention identified by Bartlett is direct

marketing, including farmer’s markets and community-supported agriculture (CSAs).

Bartlett argues that the provision of direct marketing experiences give local farms a new

market to expand into, supporting the growth of new nodes, actors and institutions in the

food system (Bartlett 2011). And lastly she sees the hands-on experience gained through

working in community gardens and campus farms as an impactful way to change food

culture and appreciation on college campuses (2011).

Bartlett’s points are not lost on collegiate institutions, many of which have taken

advantage of their ability to create food-system change. Ways forward to creating this

change are plentiful, and dining managers have found many ways to improve their food

system’s sustainability. However because universities are large bureaucratic institutions in

which rapid change is hard to come by, small incremental steps may be the key to achieving

food system sustainability (Breymen 1998). While initially small, these tweaks can have

potentially huge benefits, and many universities are making progress on different fronts of

the food sustainability issue.

To elucidate the approach that other universities have taken I will draw from

Dartmouth student Cristina Pelligrini’s 2012 report Building a More Sustainable Food

System at Dartmouth College: Lessons and Insights from Campus Models Across the Nation.

22

Pelligrini undertook an in-depth analysis of the actions taken at 8 institutions similar to

Dartmouth in order to discover lessons learned in their approach and take an educated

look at how Dartmouth was approaching its own food system. Below is a table with content

from her paper showing the similarities and differences between these institutions and

Dartmouth.

Table 1: Comparing Sustainable Food Across Universities

School Campus Farm

Educational Connection

Campus-wide engagement

Dining progress

Institutional Support

Main Foci

Dartmouth ✓ ✓ ✓

Stanford ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ farm as connector

Harvard ✓ ✓ ✓ food education

Bates ✓ ✓ ✓ food awareness

UC Berkeley ✓ ✓ ✓ inherently green

Duke ✓ ✓ dining standards

Brown ✓ ✓ ✓ sourcing local

Yale ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ farm, sustainable sourcing

Middlebury ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ sourcing local

The common thread among the institutions that have made significant

progress—Stanford, Middlebury and Yale—is a clear sense of commitment (grassroots or

administrative), implementation through a specialized staff, campus-wide awareness, food

purchasing priorities, a connection between food, nutrition and health, and a clear sense of

culinary pride (2012). This study revealed a wide range of approaches, with schools like

Yale, Stanford and Harvard having a large number of staff and student interns working on

food-specific sustainability, and other institutions like UC Berkeley with no direct staff but

a clear sense of sustainability culture (2012). No matter the manpower, some institutions

focused on education and awareness around the health and environmental effects of our

food (Harvard and Bates), whereas others were more focused on the sustainability of the

23

actual food being provided in the dining halls (Duke, Brown, Middlebury) (2012). That said,

one of the most comprehensive programs with ties into the university’s classrooms,

campus culture, dining halls, and institutional mission was Stanford, who used their

campus farm as a living laboratory for food system change (2012). The overall takeaway

from Pelligrini’s report is that the context of the school was important: each school had

unique opportunities to be a food sustainability leader, but those opportunities differed

greatly between each institution. For Dartmouth to find its own success, its important to

pay attention to the resources our Dining Services has and how such assets can be

leveraged to create the most change.

24

Part 3: History of Food Projects at Dartmouth College

Turning the focus more strictly to Dartmouth, this section will briefly describe

important food initiatives on campus. There has been a longstanding history of improving

the sustainability of food within Dartmouth Dining Services (DDS) that should be

acknowledged before going forward. An important step in sustainability at Dartmouth was

the hiring of the Sustainability Director Jim Merkel in 2005. One of the first major

initiatives he implemented was a zero waste program in a old dining hall known as Home

Plate where he intended to change waste and packaging practices (Pelligrini 2012). Paired

with this change was a push of support from the Sustainable Dining Club which had a

returnable take-out set for students to use and avoid waste, but due to a 25% loss in

tupperware after the pilot, the program was terminated (2012). During his time there were

numerous student studies on waste reduction and waste diversion in dining halls paired

with student-led interventions (Musco 2015). These initiatives unfortunately failed due to

lack of accountability, hurdles in the college’s health standards and theft rates (2015). Next,

Merkel created a sustainable dining committee proposal to the Provost for administrative

approval and a public statement of support for future initiatives (Pelligrini 2012).

Unfortunately because Merkel left Dartmouth soon after, this project was never driven to

fruition (Musco 2015).

In 2007, one of the most notable sustainable food projects tackled by DDS was Farm

to Dartmouth, a 3 year collaboration between Vital Communities, Dartmouth Dining

Services and local farmers (Pelligrini 2012). Funded by a USDA grant, the project was able

to create direct purchasing relationships between DDS and local farms as well as

25

sponsoring tastings, local lunches and dinners on campus, as well as a labeling system to

identify local food projects for students (2012). This is the first time in Dartmouth’s history

that the school made a major effort to cooperate with local farms. While being a

noteworthy project, DDS encountered a host of problems. The variety of processing

methods from the many farms in the area as well as short-term changes in production

volume created many transaction costs for DDS (Musco 2012).

The next major step forward was the inception the Dartmouth Sustainability Office

in 2010. With direct reporting to the Provost this office became the legitimate and

centralized house of all things sustainability on Dartmouth’s campus. Through this office

Dartmouth acquired a small in-house staff and began sponsoring intern-driven projects

around sustainability and sustainable food in specific. One project was the work done by

Pelligrini who in 2012 published her comparative report on institutional food. Her work

inspired two sustainable food interns in the Sustainability Office to launch the Real Food

Challenge to reinvigorate student interest on campus (Musco 2015). These interns also

conducted a survey which showed that 77% of students wanted to see more local food in

Dartmouth’s dining halls (Franklin & Kumalah 2012).

At the same time that the Dartmouth Sustainability Office was being established,

DDS was making its own strides. Despite becoming a zero-sort campus in 2010, food waste

was still an issue on campus and DDS was building a new dining hall to internally solve

some of the problems Merkel had encountered at Home Plate (Musco 2015). In its place,

Dartmouth Dining Services planned the new 1953 Commons, an all-you-can-eat dining hall

built with waste reduction in mind. They installed a somat food composting system that

26

took 100% of food and paper waste from the facility and diverted it to compost (2015). In

addition, DDS changed their food contract with their main broadline distributor

Performance Foods Group in 2013, including language asking for sustainability

programming and sourcing whenever possible (2015).

This language led to stipends for student interns who continued to work on

sustainable food initiatives in DDS and work on the Real Food Challenge in particular

(2015). From 2013 to present, students have continued doing research on sustainable food

sourcing for DDS, running into the familiar challenges of changing institutional food

systems, including: the difficulty of sourcing large quantities from small producers,

processing small orders in the same manner as their broadline distributor, making

sourcing switches cost-efficient, and when providing grocery-like options, overcoming the

lack of student cooking knowledge and kitchen equipment (2015).

There has also been a bigger prioritization of local food by DDS who has worked on

specific food targets: regional dairy (milk, yogurt, and cheese), Marine Stewardship Council

(MSC) certified seafood, and sourcing a handful of local grain products and regional

humanely-raised meats (2015). While not taking on a massive sustainable produce

campaign, DDS has greatly increased their programming about sustainability, hosting two

harvest dinners per year and including sustainability in their special programming events

for students. Additionally, DDS has created and strengthened a partnership with the

Dartmouth Organic Farm (DOF), and is always receptive in doing more with the farm’s food

when possible (2015). Food from the DOF is often showcased in the Collis salad bar during

summer and fall months, and there is the potential to source even more from the farm.

27

Since the DOF is within Dartmouth’s legal holdings and has the insurance and legal

contracts to produce food for the college, the DOF can act as a great first partner for many

of DDS’s local food programs due to ease of entry (2015). Furthermore, DDS has recognized

that local food and the DOF in particular is a hotbed of student interest which can positively

impact DDS’ public image.

Lastly there is some specific data about DDS practices from the 2013 to 2014 STARS

report that shows both areas of growth and opportunities for further change. Data from

this report shows that a total of $7,807,734 dollars were spent on local, community-based,

and or third party verified food and beverages (Harrison 2015). While 89% of total

beverages fit the above description, only 22.3% of food was non-conventional, meaning

that 77.7% of total food purchases are connected to the negative externalities discussed in

Part 1 of this thesis (Harrison 2015). At that the time of data collection Dartmouth was not

certified as a Fair-Trade Campus, given the Green Seal Standard, MSC certified, or Real

Food Campus committed (2015). Clearly, DDS has made great strides in terms of

sustainable food sourcing, but there is still room to grow, especially in the area of

conventional food purchases.

28

Part 4: Exploring Paths Towards Sustainable Food at Dartmouth

Section A: Investigating Local

When thinking about how to achieve a sustainable university food system there are

many paths forward. Outside of the conventional food system there are many different

forms of agriculture that are more beneficial to the environment, economy, and social

sphere. For example, organically labeled products are certified to have been grown without

the use of “synthetic fertilizers, chemicals, or sewage sludge, and cannot contain genetically

modified organisms or be irradiated” (USDA 2015). Other types of products include

cage-free eggs, free-range eggs, grain-fed meat, certified humanely raised and handled

meats, pasture-raised animals, hormone-free milk and dairy products, biodynamic

produce, fair-trade certified bananas, food alliance certified products, marine stewardship

council certified seafood, rainforest alliance certified coffee, local food, and many other

types of food that have labels associated with positive ecological social and economic

outcomes (Anderson-Gips 2008). There are also alternative food lifestyles to the extent

that consumers can decide how to engage with food on a daily basis, most notably eating

lower on the food chain, or avoiding meat altogether. Clearly there are many paths towards

a more sustainable food system, the harder question is in what direction does a community

want to go and what kind of changes will have the largest impact.

That said, one label will rarely encapsulate a food panacea: having the least resource

use, minimal economic waste, and the most social value across all scenarios. There is no

"silver bullet" that can immediately reverse the vast problems of poor farming policies

(Hesterman 2011). These alternative food systems are difficult to define and classify given

29

the complex nature of food production globally. While “sustainable” tends to coincide with

the labels listed above, in some cases the labels fail to represent farms that create social,

environmental, and economic welfare, falling short of consumer expectations. For example,

an organic farm that complies with regulations by not using synthetic fertilizers or

pesticides can still be a massive industrial monoculture that taxes ecological systems with

high input demands and soil degradation (Guthman 2004). When trying to avoid industrial

agriculture, the only confirmed ‘label’ of sustainability is direct knowledge of the farmer’s

practices. Even though labels ensure some beneficial practices, they fail to guarantee

wholesome ecological, economic and social welfare.

Although labels are not perfect, I had to choose some metric to focus on within the

Dartmouth food system. Going forward with any kind of change in institutional settings is

difficult: changes in procurement are time consuming and management intensive; their

benefits are hard to calculate; and switching to these certified foods can be financially

burdensome for tight institutional food budgets. During my research I found that

Dartmouth is making significant progress despite these challenges: starting an effort to

source all seafood as marine stewardship certified; expanding their selection of organic

products; switching to fair-trade coffee; and using local produce when cost efficient. Even

though DDS is successfully tackling many sustainability issues, more could be done, seeing

as in 2013, 77% of DDS’s food was still conventional. However many of the beneficial

changes I learned about from other colleges were already being made within DDS and

changes like sourcing more organic products were beyond my expertise and understanding

given the complexities of global sourcing and pricing.

30

That said I found that there was traction within DDS to increase the amount of local

food at Dartmouth. DDS’ efforts to increase local food began in 2007 with the Farm to

Dartmouth program, leaving them with first-hand experience working directly with

farmers and making local food sourcing a familiar idea for DDS. Additionally, I was

inspired by my own personal experiences at Dartmouth enjoying the bounty of produce

available in the Upper Valley during the summer and fall, as well as cooking food from the

Farmers’ Market during sophomore summer. Due to the reasons above I chose local as the

metric to focus on throughout my food project at Dartmouth.

After taking this next step, I had to qualify local as a legitimate target to aim for.

“Local” is a complex label, certainly not a panacea, but there is evidence to suggest that

shifting back to a more localized scale could lead to improved environmental, economic,

and social outcomes. Local food can solve problems associated with the cost and emissions

from travel that create negative environmental outcomes, as well as overcoming ignorance

about the seasonality and production of our food. Surely it would lead to the kind of

education that Barbara Kingsolver talked about in her book, Animal Vegetable Miracle

(2008). Her family embarked on a massive challenge, sourcing their food for an entire year

locally. Her journey showed the dedication, research, and sheer amount of cooking time

required for such an effort, but also the massive rewards. She experienced improved health

and a connection to the seasons: both the meagerness of late winter but also the excitement

of spring and bounty of late summer.

Our current agricultural system robs eaters of these experiences, and in their

ignorance, they expect things from their food provisioners that are exorbitantly wasteful,

31

difficult, and impractical. For example, Dartmouth students routinely complain about the

lack of fresh fruit during frozen New Hampshire winters, expect avocados to be the same as

those in California, and “hate turnips” even though they happily ate the winter root

vegetable stir-fry full of them. Students come to Dartmouth from all over the world and

exist in a bubble disconnected from rural communities that surround them. Eating locally

and learning about how food works in your region can be an eye-opening journey, one

clearly positive from Kingsolver’s account (2008).

While having many benefits, such outcomes are not restricted to the local scale, nor

does the local scale inherently provide environmental, economic, or social benefits. For

example, Confined Animal Feed Operations (CAFOs) in California may be local to Central

Valley residents, but that does not mean that their meat is desirable. New York might want

to grow its own food but its level of urban density surely makes it impractical. “Local

Organic New Hampshire Tomatoes!” sounds idyllic but if local was always better, why

would these tomatoes have a bigger carbon footprint than the ones beside them shipped

from California? (Friedland 2012). The energy required to heat a greenhouse to grow

tomatoes in the New Hampshire winter is greater than that required to grow and transport

tomatoes from California that grow without heating inputs (2012). In many cases

increasing local food can have deleterious environmental effects or be an impractical food

system feature to optimize.

As Born and Purcell argue in their essay, Avoiding the Local Trap, local is not an end

in itself, to environmental justice, sustainability or strengthened community ties (2006).

Sustainability is situational and depends on the local climate and soil. A label is not what is

32

sustainable, what is sustainable the the actual complex system of food production made up

of actors and institutions with various priorities and values. Born and Purcell criticize those

who have mistaken local as inherently better—correctly identifying the actors operating in

a particular place and scale as the cause of any good or bad outcome (2006). This means

that to optimize a specific food system you need to engage with producers that are acting

towards your goals, no matter at what scale they are operating or how far they are away

(Born & Purcell 2006). There is some concern about the energy requirements of food

transportation, and transport emissions should be calculated, but for the most part one

must truly investigate if local farmers are growing food the way that inspires their local

community. It is important to avoid overgeneralizing the benefits of certain labels, ensuring

that we take into account all of the energy inputs and environmental effects of the

agricultural practices we are supporting (Born & Purcell 2006).

The quality of localized food systems vary a great deal and need to be looked at

individually in order to compare them positively or negatively with the globalized food

system. For the purposes of this thesis, the context was Dartmouth College and the

surrounding Upper Valley region. By deeply analyzing the food network within which

Dartmouth is located, it becomes clear that the intentions and behaviors of local farmers

are sustainable and could benefit Dartmouth College. Situated within 26 road miles of

Dartmouth are 5 small scale farms: The Dartmouth Organic Farm, Sweetland Farm, Cedar

Circle, Blue Ox, Luna Bleu. Although all 5 use sustainable practices, Cedar Circle, Luna Bleu,

Blue Ox, and the Dartmouth Organic Farm are all certified organic. A majority of the farms

make diversified crop production central to their mission as well as raising their animals

33

freely on pasture. All of these farms except the Dartmouth Organic Farm have CSAs as their

primary source of income. Beyond these farms there are many more in the surrounding

region. To provide a visual example of the plethora and density of small farms surrounding

Dartmouth college I have included the image below resulting from a google maps search of

“farm”.

Figure 2: Google Map of Area Surrounding Dartmouth College

Note that Dartmouth is the blue dot on the map and all of the red dots represent search results for ‘farm’ in the area surrounding Dartmouth. Map source is Google Maps, May 2015.

Operations such as these and those just a bit farther away could aggregate together

to share their summer and fall harvests with Dartmouth. While in some locations local

34

doesn’t mean better (and surely in the Upper Valley winter it does not), during the

productive New England growing season it would benefit the Dartmouth Food System to

source locally.

Section B: Choosing Community-Supported Agriculture

Even when focusing on increasing local food inside of Dartmouth Dining Services

there are still many different ways forward. Dartmouth could focus on increasing direct

purchases from farms similar to those listed above, or they could focus their attention on

more local-food-celebration dinners oriented towards creating campus awareness. If DDS

were to tackle local procurement they could focus on sourcing 100% of certain food groups

locally, such as meat, milk, or produce, or they could take a generalist's approach and do

less but for more food groups. There is also the need to consider what to do in winter

months because greenhouse growing in the Upper Valley is not a sustainable venture.

Would focusing on storage crops like potatoes, onions, apples and other roots be most

advantageous? Another question is scale: should DDS focus on bigger players in the food

system like their broadline distributors and draft better purchasing guidelines, or build

stronger connections with local farms?

While clearly all of these avenues could be explored, this thesis will focus on one

avenue: a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. A CSA program is a system

whereby a local farm distributes produce regularly (usually weekly) to people who have

bought shares in the farm for that season. While the other pathways to increasing local

food are beneficial they were not as viable as a CSA. Specifically, interventions in

procurement are controlled by DDS staff so they do not have the same capacity as a CSA to

35

be an initiative led by students. CSA programs are an entirely new domain for DDS to enter

so there is a lot of room for student research, input, and involvement. Secondly, a CSA can

visibly engage a large diversity of Dartmouth students on food issues. Instead of the

one-time excitement associated with longstanding changes such as switching to all-local

dairy, a CSA can garner weekly buzz and interest by being a visible program with public

pick-up locations. Lastly, a CSA can change the very nature of how students interact with

food on campus. Unlike changing how Dartmouth procures food for its dining halls,

providing a CSA for students gives plentiful opportunities for hands-on learning on how to

prepare fresh fruits and vegetables and the nature of eating sustainably. Such learning

about how to consume food can become lifelong habits that will benefit students and the

environmental and economic systems with which they engage. In summary, CSAs at

Dartmouth create the opportunity to innovate positive change within our food system.

CSA programs, as briefly defined above, involve farms that are supported and

maintained by the communities that surround them. In the broadest sense a CSA is any

kind of program that directly brings food from a local farm to a community member

without a marketplace. Usually, consumers buy a “share” of the CSA in advance that

consists of a predetermined number of weekly deliveries of fresh produce. Because these

shares are pre-purchased, small farmers are better off because their shareholders help

shoulder the risk of a poor growing year. At the same time this investment is beneficial to

CSA members because they are rewarded in years of bounty, get the freshest food available,

and likely explore new vegetables and produce they usually wouldn’t try. One variable

feature of a CSA is if the consumer can decide which crops and at what quantities they want

36

from the farm, or if the farm just divvies up that week’s harvest equally into the number of

shares it has sold for that season. Nonetheless, day-to-day changes on the farm determine

the food provided by a CSA and thus CSA programs mitigate the fluctuations that usually

hurt farmers.

While there has not been a large amount of research on the effect of CSA programs

on colleges and universities, there has been some research on the benefits of CSAs in

general. I will structure these findings in a direct parallel to the problems of industrial

agriculture, beginning with how CSA’s can benefit the environment. Marcia Ostrom, a

sustainable agriculture research professor at Washington State University, has weighed in

on the issue after conducting a broad investigation of CSAs looking to understand their role

as an agent for change in American farming. Environmentally, “production on CSA farms

often employs organic, low input agricultural methods: acreages are typically small and

crops are diversified” (Wharton & Harmon 2009, 113). CSAs on the whole use methods

antithetical to industrial agriculture and as such avoid many of the disastrous effects that

coincide with large monoculture operations. Interestingly however, CSA researchers

haven’t confirmed that such positive externalities are a main driver to CSA membership.

While Cone and Myhre in their article Community Supported Agriculture: A Sustainable

Alternative to Industrial Agriculture found that shareholders were motivated by positive

environmental effects (2000, 196), Ostrom identified environmental stewardship as only a

weak motivator for CSA interest (2007).

Economically, CSAs seem to avoid the waste associated with industrial agriculture

as well as improving economic conditions for farmers. A rundown of CSA’s financial

37

benefits include that they do not waste taxpayer money in the form of subsidies, their

payment structure shares the financial risk of farming with the consumer, they provide a

fair wage for the farmer, and their small scale is much less likely to produce the massive

waste associated with industrial agriculture (Wharton & Harmon 2009, 113). While not all

CSA farms are financially viable, Ostrom found that the most financially successful farms

were entrepreneurial in nature and also had the highest quality produce, highest member

return rates, and generated living wages for the farmers. Another factor related to

long-term viability of CSA farms was the presence of farm-to-farm collaboration. When

farms band together to offer shares that include a greater diversity of products they are

further able to mitigate risk and offer a better offering for their members. When CSAs are

entrepreneurial in nature and collaborate with neighboring farms they are able to truly

deliver on their promise of offering a superior product than conventional agriculture.

Additionally, many researchers have found CSA shares to be cheaper than buying the same

produce in the supermarket, organic or not (Cone & Myhre 2000). Even with these financial

benefits Cone and Myhre found that the price of CSAs were not a major motivation for

membership (2000).

A majority of the research on CSAs has focused on social benefits because that is

where CSAs offer unique and tangible rewards that a regular local farm cannot offer. Health

and nutrition is one of such social benefits that is directly addressed by CSA membership

due to their provision of fresher and more nutritious produce (Wharton & Harmon 2009,

113). In Ostrom’s results she shares anecdotes of CSA shareholders who said their

involvement changed their eating habits, leading them to eat more vegetables of a greater

38

variety and increased freshness, citing that “around 90 percent of survey respondents said

their household eating and shopping habits had changed in positive ways as a result of CSA

membership” (Ostrom 2007, 113). In addition to these anecdotal observations Minaker et

al. published an article showing that “higher frequency of shopping at farmer’s markets and

CSAs is associated with reduced body mass index and waist circumference,” a clear benefit

of these programs for social welfare (2014, 485). The article explains that CSA participation

was associated with lower body mass index and waist circumference (even after

controlling for desire to lose weight), as well as increased consumption of fruits and

vegetables. Ostrom also found that shareholders identified such benefits since their

motivations for membership were primarily taste, freshness and healthiness.

But beyond promoting health, Cone and Myhre claimed that CSAs represent a

radical attempt to resist industrial agriculture (2000, 188). Ostrom agrees, identifying the

power of CSAs in their ability to “forge a new understanding of what it means to eat” (2007,

114). Moreover, CSA’s give their shareholders “opportunities to increase their

understanding of food, the challenges faced by farmers, the needs of the environment, and

the potential role informed citizens can play in reshaping food and economic

systems.”(Ostrom 2007, 117) Cone and Myhre also state that “effective CSA farms have the

potential for “re-embedding” people in time and place though linking them to a specific

piece of land and awareness of the seasons,” which is a big transition from the anonymous

nature of the industrial food system (2000, 188). “CSA members not only know where and

when their food is grown, they know who grows it”(2000, 188). Clearly CSAs create a

venue for socially just food interactions and meaningful culinary experiences, but these

39

clear social values may not be motivating membership (Wharton & Harmon 2009). Ostrom

as well as Cone and Myhre found community ties to be an infrequently cited motivation for

CSA interst (2007, 2000). That said, in her focus groups Ostrom identified dissatisfaction

and critiques of the conventional food system to be primary motivators for joining a CSA

program (2007).

In spite of these many benefits, not all CSAs are able to achieve their aims. Cone and

Myhre found that CSA shareholders are deterred by “lifestyle changes, lack of choice, and

inconvenience” (2000, 196). Ostrom found evidence of such deterrence as some CSAs were

struggling to earn enough revenue and retain and engage their shareholders, and that CSAs

were too expensive to be open to all income levels (2007). Cone and Myhre found another

criticism which is that the social benefits of a CSA represented more of a longing than a

realization. They noted that the community ties longed for and promised by CSA programs

tended to be an “expression of longing, a nostalgia for the imagined social bonds of our

rural past”, a kind of community that is difficult for CSA members to realize, given the

demands and constraints of their lives (196). This last point is particularly poignant since it

fully acknowledges the potential CSAs have to offer while showing that many times those

goals are left unrealized in the face of busy schedules and higher priorities, a contextual

feature surely at play at Dartmouth.

In terms of how the benefits and challenges of CSAs apply to college campuses, I

have found exactly one article about CSAs and universities in a peer reviewed journal, by

Wharton and Harmon who come from a nutrition and health background at Arizona and

Montana State respectively. They see universities as a “less common but potentially

40

successful venue in which to run a CSA” (Wharton & Harmon 2009, 112). They solidify the

argument that CSAs can overcome many of the problems currently associated with

institutional food provisioning and the conventional food system. In reference to CSAs on

college campuses they see major opportunities to engage the community around a program

that supports student welfare, the ability to use CSA revenue to support outreach events,

and the ability to use existing collegiate infrastructure to easily market and communicate

about a CSA program (e.g. listservs, newsletters, newspapers, clubs) (2009). The main

barriers that they identify are the liability and contractual obligations that farms have to

comply with in order to serve students, the logistics of scheduling pick ups with variable

class schedules and extracurricular commitments, a lack of cooking facilities and

equipment, and tight student budgets (2009).

A Dartmouth CSA can serve as an ideal site for food system change. There are two

factors to a Dartmouth CSA that would capitalize on the potential benefits to an even larger

degree: sourcing from the Dartmouth Organic Farm and housing it within Dartmouth

Dining Services as a meal plan option. Currently the DOF is only growing on 7% of the total

available arable land, and there is a huge potential to increase production. Drawing on

arguments presented earlier from Bartlett, the DOF can be a key to food system change

success due to its ability to change procurement practices within DDS, involve students and

faculty academically, provide students and community members with healthy nutritious

food, as well as providing community members with hands on experience in the garden.

The DOF is an ideal partner for a CSA because it is tightly knit into the Dartmouth

community. The DOF could solidify a CSA’s ability to ground students in a sense of

41

appreciation and connection to their food, as students are likely to visit the DOF during

their student career, in addition to meeting students who work at the farm. Additionally,

because the DOF is owned by the college the legal requirements for sourcing are not a

barrier for implementation, and financially the produce may be more feasible to purchase

compared to an outside private farm. This last point is only of concern if the CSA is offered

within the meal plan, making DDS the intermediary between farms and students.

If DDS were to institutionalize such an offering, the longstanding success and ability

of a CSA to reach a large percentage of the student population would greatly increase.

While the DOF and other CSA farms in the Upper Valley already have some connection to

Dartmouth College, they lack a robust connection with DDS, the main food provisioner for

undergraduate students. If such a connection were to be forged, and DDS were to offer a

CSA with a thought-out structure that is tailored to Dartmouth Students, because the meal

plan is covered by financial aid, all students regardless of financial need would be able to

access fresh fruits and vegetables. If Dartmouth were to move forward with this step, to my

knowledge after in-depth research, it would be the only higher learning institution in the

nation that will provide students with CSA within the meal plan, and thus the only

institution actively reducing barriers of entry for low-income students.

To summarize, the potential benefits a CSA could offer Dartmouth include: healthier

student eating habits, providing opportunities to learn how to cook, building community

around cooking and food, improving the perception of DDS, improving the local food

system surrounding Dartmouth, reducing Dartmouth’s environmental footprint, and

educating students on what healthy sustainable food is. The question for Dartmouth and in

42

particular DDS is what is the best way to offer such a service to students, and how can we

garner long-term support. For some initial findings there is some anecdotal evidence from

programs historically offered through the DOF. In the past the DOF has provided produce

to Dartmouth students through a pick-your-own model and a CSA. The pick-your-own

model struggled in getting students off campus 3 miles to the farm, whereas the CSA while

small (20 to 40 members), has historically sold out and been a success on campus (Musco

2015). The major problem experienced by the DOF CSA organizers was that during the end

of the term students got busier and busier and at times were not able to pick up or cook the

food they paid for (Musco 2015). Regardless, there is still an opportunity to serve many

more students with local fresh produce and the possibility for ingenuity and planning to

overcome the hurdles of packed schedules and limited cooking abilities and equipment.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the Dartmouth context and student preferences to

find a solution that will help a CSA thrive and accomplish its all of its goals here on campus.

43

44

Methods Part 1: Study Area

This study took place at Dartmouth College. The private undergraduate college has

an average of 4,000 students from all 50 states and 79 international countries. The school

was founded in 1769 and is a member of the Ivy League. The college is located in a rural

area in New Hampshire, bordering Vermont. The survey was distributed during fall term, a

relatively busy term on Dartmouth’s campus.

Part 2: Data Collection

I collected data in the form of student surveys and stakeholder interviews. With the

help of Professor Cox I developed a survey (to view the survey please refer to Appendix 1)

to collect the desired data from Dartmouth students. The survey was designed to elicit

understanding of students’ cooking and eating habits as well as their food preferences

while at Dartmouth. The survey asked students how often they cook at home, what meals

they cook most often, where they live, and what type of type of CSA with what ingredients

they would prefer. The survey revealed student preferences around potential CSA models

and revealed what factors were correlated to their interest/disinterest. The elicited data is

important to understanding what type of students would likely engage with a CSA, what

characteristics should be focused on to increase engagement and student satisfaction, as

well uncovering student’s general desires concerning food and labeling within Dartmouth

Dining Services. Please note that all ordinal data (e.g. “please rate your preference from

1-5”) used 1 as least interested/least important, and 3 or 5 as most interested/important.

45

To help me collect the data, I paid 3 students to act as survey distributors and

interview students coming into dining halls. Since every student enrolled at Dartmouth is

required to be on a meal plan, and thus are provisioned 3 paid-for meals every day in the

dining halls, all students are likely to go to the dining halls during meal hours. Students that

I would be less likely to reach would be students missing a meal, students who travel

frequently and were not on campus, and students who live off campus or in affinity houses

who cook for themselves. The survey distributors and myself approached students

between 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM during lunch hours and between 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM during

dinner hours for a total of 20 survey hours between November 17th and November 21st,

the last week of fall term before finals. That means for one week, during every lunch and

dinner meal period someone was stationed at one of the three dining halls on campus; the

Hop, Collis, and 53 commons. 75 students were reached in this effort, making up 44% of

total respondents. In addition to these samples I emailed out the survey to a variety of

groups on campus. These groups included Ruckus, the environmentally focused Dartmouth

listserv, my sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, and the Dartmouth Women’s volleyball team of

which I am a member. 95 students were reached via email, making up 56% of total

respondents.

46

Part 3: Data Analysis

After I had received a total of 170 survey responses I used Stata to perform my data

analysis. To prepare question 19 (whyinterest) for analysis, I took the open answer

question in which respondents discussed the reasons why they were motivated or

unmotivated to purchase a CSA, and created 6 binary variables in which to capture their

responses. I read through every answer and coded a 1 into the corresponding new variable

if the student referenced the new variable’s central concept in their response. After

recoding question 19 the answers could be used in a tabulation with CSA interest. The

definition of the 6 variables is below:

1. Posext: interested in CSA due to the positive externalities associated with CSA’s including benefitting the local economy and farmers, contributing to a sense of place, and beneficial effects on the environment.

2. Ease: a CSA would facilitate getting the produce desired by respondents and

increasing the ease of cooking.

3. Good: the food provided by a CSA was deemed as ‘good’ by respondent because of its healthiness, because it provides mainly fruits and vegetables, its freshness, and its high quality of taste.

4. Cost: respondent stated that cost would be a barrier to getting a CSA.

5. NotImp: students were apathetic to a CSA and didn’t care about it.

6. NotFeasible: students cited their busy schedules, lack of cooking facilities, and lack

of equipment as a reason for their disinterest.

After I coded question 19 into binary variables I conducted a series of univariate

analyses to get summary statistics about variables such as gender and where students live,

their major and the types of produce they buy or want in a CSA. I also included basic

summary statistics for responses to what students care most about in regards to food and

47

what changes would impact them most. Next I conducted bivariate analyses to examine

what were the reasons cited as motivations and barriers to CSA interest, the frequency of

students cooking for themselves broken up by where they live, and the importance of the

CSA being organic broken down by CSA interest.

Afterwards I conducted two multivariate regressions. The first was a standard

linear regression of the impact of respondent’s level of CSA interest on their willingness to

pay for a salad share (paysalad) and a jumbo share (payjumbo). My second and most

important multivariate regression used several independent variables to try to explain

individual differences in CSA interest. The independent variables that I included in the

regression were gen, envs, residence, totalmealscooked, and cookmore. I included gen,

envs, and residence to see in a broad sense what type of students make up the CSA market

and if differences in those basic categories had a major correlation with interest in CSA’s at

Dartmouth. I included totalmealscooked and cookmore as independent variables to see if

previous habits in cooking for oneself were predictive of CSA interest, and on the other

hand if future desires to cook more were correlated with interest in CSAs. This analysis was

in the form of an ordinal logistic regression since CSAinterest is an ordinal variable from

1-3. The list of all variable names is below in Table 2.

48

Table 2: Variable Names, Types, and Descriptions

Variable Name Variable Type Variable Description

gen binary, 1=f, 0=m gender of respondent

residence categorical if living off campus, on campus, greek house, or in an affinity house

envs binary if respondent has identified an ENVS major

totalmealscooked interval total number of meals cook by respondent on average week

cookmore ordinal (1-3) desire of student to cook more for themselves or not

grocery numerical frequency of grocery shopping for respondent (# times per term)

foodprefs multiple choice categorical

types of major grocery categories students buy if they grocery shop

CSAinterest ordinal (1-3) respondent level of interest/disinterest in a CSA at Dartmouth

springCSA: ordinal (1-3) interest in 4 week spring CSA: lettuce, broccoli, chard, kale

summerveg ordinal (1-3) interest in 9 week summer CSA: variety of veggies and herbs

jumbo ordinal (1-3) interest in 9 week summer CSA: vegetables, herbs, meat, eggs

fall ordinal (1-3) interest in 4 week fall CSA: kale, chard, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers

products multiple choice categorical

products desirable to get if they were to sign up for a CSA program

organicCSA ordinal (1-3) level of importance placed on organic certification of CSA

paysalad text WTP for ALL 8 weekly boxes of salad supplies

payjumbo text WTP for ALL 8 weekly boxes of salad, vegetables, meats, eggs

whyinterest text qualitative, why students are interested/disinterested in CSA

posext text cited positive externality of CSA as factor of interest

ease text cited ease of getting food & cooking as factor of CSA interest

good text cited interest from fact that CSA food was the food they wanted to eat

cost text cited cost as deterrent from purchasing CSA

notimp text cited their own apathy as cause for disinterest

notfeasible text cited lack of time/space as cause for disinterest

foodprefs multiple choice categorical

what matters most for food served in dining halls: local, organic, hormone free, sustainably produced, healthy, none of the above,

other

sustainable ordinal (1-5) impact of sustainable label on purchasing/perceptions of DDS

fresh ordinal (1-5) impact of fresh label on purchasing/perceptions of DDS

organic ordinal (1-5) impact of organic label on purchasing/perceptions of DDS

tasty ordinal (1-5) impact of tasty label on purchasing/perceptions of DDS

real ordinal (1-5) impact of real label on purchasing/perceptions of DDS

humanemeat ordinal (1-5) impact of DDS serving more humane meat on perception of DDS

localproduce ordinal (1-5) impact of DDS serving more local produce on perception of DDS

CSAoption ordinal (1-5) impact of CSA option paid for w/ meal plan on perception of DDS

marketing ordinal (1-5) impact of increased marketing & labeling on perception of DDS

49

50

Results

The results of this survey are explained below in a series of tables broken up into the following sections: univariate results, bivariate results and multivariate regressions. Below each table is a brief description of the contents of the table, and in some cases complementary graphs to visually display the findings. Please refer to Table 2 for definitions of variable names and Appendix 1 for the survey. Part 1: Univariate Results

Table 3: Basic Univariate Results

Variable Mean Median Min Max

gen (female = 1) 0.6 1 0 1

survey location (dds = 0) 0.44 1 0 1

mealsday 2.83 3 1 3.5

totalmealscooked 2.51 1 0 18

grocery 2.44 1.5 0 10

sustainable 3.31 3 1 5

fresh 4.11 4 1 5

organic 3.45 4 1 5

tasty 3.29 4 1 5

real 3.69 4 1 5

humanemeat 4.19 4 2 5

localproduce 4.39 5 3 5

CSAoption 4.46 5 2 5

marketing 4.08 4 1 5

Table 3 contains the basic univariate results of my survey. Some things of particular importance are that 60% of the respondents were female, that students grocery shopped on average 2.44 times per term, that they cared most about food labeled as fresh and they were most impacted by CSA meal-plan option created by DDS.

51

Table 4: Ordinal Univariate Results

Variable 1: Disagree/ Disinterested

2: Neutral/Somewhat

Interested

3: Agree/Very Interested

Mean Median

cookmore 28 44 98 2.41 3

CSAinterest 20 85 65 2.25 2

springCSA 27 73 70 2.25 2

summerveg 35 68 67 2.19 2

jumbo 32 61 77 2.26 2

fall 22 56 92 2.41 3

organicCSA 31 82 57 2.13 2

Table 4 shows the number of responses for the different categories for a set of ordinal variables, showing that a majority of students wanted to cook more on campus (Figure 3), that an overwhelming majority of Dartmouth students were interested or very interested in a CSA (Figure 4), that the greatest demand for a CSA existed in the fall albeit strong interest in other terms as well (Figure 5), and that students were largely ambivalent about the CSA being organic. Please refer to the figures below for visual representations of the data.

52

53

Table 5: Types of Grocery Items Students Buy

Type of Grocery # of Students Who Buy Category

% of Students Who Buy Category

Other Snacks 96 56%

Produce 78 46%

Dairy 78 46%

Cereals 70 41%

Drinks 62 36%

Never grocery shop 32 19%

Baked Goods 24 14%

Frozen Goods 24 14%

Meats 23 14%

Other 12 7%

None of the Above 6 4%

Table 5 shows the types of groceries that students purchased when they shopped at Dartmouth. The category purchased by the greatest percentage of students was ‘other snacks’ which is unfortunately vague, but 46% bought produce and dairy. When thinking about what food groups to include in a hypothetical CSA for Dartmouth students, zero-prep snack foods, produce and dairy should definitely be considered.

Table 6: Products Desired in CSA

Products Desired in CSA

# of Requests

% of Total Requested

Types in Category

% Type in Category

Bottom 10 Items

Top 10 Items

Veggies 372 0.47 20 0.53 beets, scallions, hard squash, garlic scapes, swiss chard, parsley, dill,

cabbage, radish, fennel, turnips

apples, blueberries,

raspberries, eggs, spinach,

tomatoes, carrots, watermelon, corn,

onions

Fruit 595 0.21 5 0.13

Greens 372 0.13 5 0.13

Meat & Eggs 346 0.12 4 0.11

Herb 199 0.07 4 0.11

Total 2846 38

Table 6 shows the types of products that respondents said they would want in a CSA at Dartmouth. There seems to be a greater preference for fruit over any other type of food (as seen in top 10 items), but decent desire for greens, meat, and eggs as well. Vegetables made up the largest percent of total items requested (47%), but they also made up more than half of the total number of product items.

54

Part 2: Bivariate Results

Table 7: Motivations and Barriers to CSA interest

CSAinterest Variable 1 2 3 Total Percentage

posext 0 19 25 44 26%

ease 0 29 27 56 33%

good 3 50 45 98 58%

cost 2 6 2 10 6%

notimp 7 5 2 14 8%

notfeasible 12 17 0 29 17%

Total 20 85 63 168

Table 7 shows the reasons students listed for being interested or disinterested in a CSA at Dartmouth. These reasons were pulled from a open-ended survey question (19) and the number of students who cited each reason add up to show aggregate rationale for potential CSA participation or disinterest. These responses are broken up by CSA interest to see if certain reasons are more highly correlated with specific levels of CSA interest. The table shows that the greatest number of responses referenced good, followed by ease, posext as reasons for interest in a CSA. For barriers to CSA interest the most cited reasons were notfeasible, notimp, cost. These responses show that students were most motivated by the type of food that would be available (good), but the biggest differentiator between those who were somewhat interested and very interested was if they noted a positive externality associated with a CSA (posext). Figure 6 shows the breakdown of CSA interest for all respondents who cited a particular motivation, showing that the majority of respondents who cited posext as a motivation for CSA interest answered 3 (very interested) when asked how interested they were in a CSA at Dartmouth. Ease was cited by most somewhat interested students, and good was cited mainly by students who were somewhat interested but also by those who were not interested at all.

Figure 6: Reasons Cited as Motivation for CSA Interest and the Distribution of those Respondents’ CSA Interest by Motivation

55

Table 8: Totalmealscooked vs. Residence

Housing Mean Median Min Max

Off Campus 6.21 7 0 18

Affinity House 3.75 1.5 0 17

On Campus 1.54 0 0 12

Greek House 0.64 0 0 4

Total 2.51 1 0 18

Table 8 shows the respondent’s average number of meals cooked per week broken down by the residence of the respondent. Clearly students who were living off campus cooked the most, an average of 6.21 times per week. Surprisingly, respondents who were living in greek houses cooked the least, cooking an average of .64 times per week. Figure 7 shows this distribution visually.

Table 9: Organic Importance vs. CSA Interest

CSA interest Mean Median Min Max

1 1.9 2 1 3

2 2.1 2 1 3

3 2.3 2 1 3

Total 2.2 2 1 3

Table 9 shows the variance in the importance of the CSA being organic by the level of CSA interest identified by the respondent. As respondents level of interest in the CSA increased so did their desire for the CSA to be organic.

56

Part 3: Multivariate Results

Table 10: Effect of CSA interest on Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Salad & Jumbo Share

Variable Beta SE P CI R2

paysalad 25.33 9.64 0.009 6.31-44.37 0.0412

payjumbo 48.34 17.25 .006 14.25-82.41 0.0495

Table 10 shows a statistically significant relationship between WTP for two different structures of potential CSAs and respondent’s overall level of interest in CSAs. These results show that CSA interest is a strong predictor of WTP for both salad shares (paysalad) and jumbo shares (payjumbo). A one level increase in CSA interest (1-3) is correlated with an $25.33 increase in WTP for a salad share and an $48.34 increase in WTP for a jumbo share.

Table 11: Effect of gen, envs, residence (on campus vs affinity house, greek house, off campus), totalmealscooked, cookmore on CSAinterest

Variable Odds ratio SE P CI

gen 1.94 0.63 0.044 -2.85 - 4.64

envs 1.04 0.64 0.950 0.31- 3.49

totalmealscooked 1.06 0.06 0.342 0.95 - 1.18

cookmore 2.60 0.58 .000 1.67 - 4.03

affinity house 2.69 1.82 .144 0.71 - 10.10

greek house 1.05 0.48 .909 0.43 - 2.59

off campus 0.93 0.43 .868 0.27 - 2.30

R2 = .1050

Table 11 shows the results of an ordered logistic regression that examined the effects of gen, totalmealscooked, envs, residence, and cookmore on CSA interest. Gen was included to see if there was a difference in interest along gender, and the odds ratio and p value show the difference to be practically and statistically significant. Women were 1.94 times more likely have a higher level of CSA interest than men. Envs was included to see if only envs majors, envs minors and sustainability minors were interested, but the results showed that being an envs major did not have a significant impact on level of CSA interest, which is important since our sample had a greater concentration of envs students than the population. Residence was included as several dummy variables to see if interest had a strong relationship with where the student lived at Dartmouth. We set on campus as the default and compared off campus, affinity, and greek house as alternatives. In contrast to on campus students, respondents who live in affinity houses were 2.69 times more likely to have a higher level of interest in a CSA, whereas students off campus and living in greek houses did not differ in a statistically or practically significant way. Totalmealscooked was included to see if CSA interest is related to how much respondents have cooked in the past but the regression showed that it was not a highly correlated factor. Cookmore, in comparison was very significant, and shows a strong correlation between CSA interest and the respondents desire to cook more in the future.

57

58

Discussion Part 1: Factors Leading to Interest and Disinterest in CSAs at Dartmouth College

This discussion will be guided by the two research questions stated in the

introduction. To begin I will examine the first question: what factors lead to CSA interest or

disinterest in Dartmouth students? The regression on CSA interest provides the clearest

answer to this question, and shows that there is a linear covariation between respondents

interest in CSAs and other defining characteristics. As seen in Table 11, the multivariate

ordinal regression on CSAinterest—which spanned from 1 (not interested) to 3 (very

interested)—analyzed gender, student residence, academic envs affiliation, the frequency

that the student cooks, and student interest in cooking more, to see how they impact

CSAinterest. The results of this analysis show that the most predictive variable is

cookmore, which captured if the student wanted to cook more for themselves. If a student

wanted to cook more than another student they were 2.6 times more likely to be interested

in a CSA by one level than the student who wanted to cook less. This result suggest that a

CSA fulfills student demand for the food stuffs required to cook more. The second strongest

predictive variable was the respondent's gender. If the respondent was female they were

1.94 times more likely to be more interested in a CSA by one level than a man. Another

predictive variable for CSA interest is if the respondent lived in an affinity house. While not

statistically significant with a P value of .144, living in an affinity house may be a practically

significant variable leading respondents to be 2.69 times more likely to choose a higher

level of CSA interest.

59

What didn’t have as big of an effect on CSA interest was being an envs major, the

average total number of meals cooked per week, living off campus, and living in a greek

house. All of these ‘insignificant’ variables go against common sense. It would make sense

for envs students, who have a greater understanding of the issues of industrial agriculture,

to be motivated to make sustainable food choices. Ostrom identified dissatisfaction with

conventional food to be a primary motivator to joining a CSA, but that did not hold true in

this sample of Dartmouth students. Similarly one would expect students who have cooked a

lot in the past (totalmealscooked) to be interested in getting produce from a CSA, but this

variable had no practical or statistical relationship with CSA interest. Lastly, the impact of

living off campus or in a greek house had no clear pattern on CSA interest levels, generating

very high P values. In summation, this regression showed a practically and statistically

significant relationship between gender and wanting to cook more and CSA interest, an

important result because it better identifies the target population as women who want to

cook more, informing potential marketing campaigns for the CSA, and motivating the need

to provide cooking infrastructure such as recipes, cooking classes, and cooking

infrastructure for students who are interested in a CSA and want to cook more.

Another important source of information on what motivates or limits CSA interest is

found in Table 7. This table shows that the quality and type of food (good) was the main

motivator for CSA interest, with 57% of all respondents citing this reason as their

motivation for being somewhat or very interested in purchasing a CSA at Dartmouth. This

finding is in line with Ostrom’s conclusion that primary motivations for CSA membership

were the taste, freshness and healthiness of the food it provided. The second main

60

motivator for CSA interest was ease of cooking (ease), which was cited by only 33% of

those interested in CSAs. The least cited reason for CSA interest were the positive

externalities it would have on the environment and local community (posext). While only

cited by 26% of respondents, posext was the only variable that was cited more frequently

by respondents that were very interested in a CSA than those who were somewhat

interested in a CSA. This makes posext the variable that best differentiates students who

were somewhat and very interested in a CSA, and thus best identifies respondents who are

most likely to purchase a share. This interesting finding may explain the difference

between Ostrom and Cone and Myhre’s understanding of environmental benefits as a

motivation for membership: even though environmental benefits are a motivator, they only

inspire a small percentage of all CSA members. That said, almost all of the research on CSAs

found social values to be a secondary motivator at best, which was confirmed by the

Dartmouth survey.

In terms of reasons for disinterest the most commonly cited reason was infeasibility

due to a lack of cooking equipment or time to spend cooking. This rationale is in line with

the challenges of changing food habits and the inconvenience of pick up and cooking cited

by Cone and Myhre. Moreover, it is seconded by their finding that CSA’s benefits can be

overshadowed by the time and effort required to accomplish them, and inputs of time and

effort are things that Dartmouth students are certainly lacking. Apathy was the second

most used reason for disinterest, cited by 8% of respondents. Cost was the least cited

reason for disinterest, a finding in line with Cone and Myhre’s findings that the price of

CSAs were not a major influencer for or against purchase. In summary, the main factors

61

that led to interest in CSAs were being female and wanting to cook more, as well as seeing

CSAs as an avenue to get fresher healthier food, being able to cook more, and enabling

positive environmental and social benefits. The factors leading to disinterest were mainly

envisioned difficulty finding the time, space and equipment to cook CSA produce and

apathy to the sustainable food movement.

Part 2: CSA Features Relevant and Important to Dartmouth Students

Section A: Season and Frequency

In regards to the second question ‘what structures or factors of a Dartmouth CSA

should be prioritized when implementing a pilot CSA program?’—there was a great deal of

specificity provided by the survey. First I will unpack student responses related to the

structure, season and frequency of a potential CSA. Students were most interested in a fall

CSA but the results were clustered close together as is apparent in Table 4 of the results,

with meat, eggs, vegetable and salad summer share (jumbo) preferred second, a spring

share (springCSA) preferred third , and a vegetable and salad summer share (summerveg)

preferred the least. All seasonal CSA options had a median response of somewhat

interested (2). It is likely that the increased interest in the fall CSA is explained by student

preferences for food (as seen in table 6) that are harvested primarily during the fall. These

results inform a pilot CSA by showing student interest in a Fall CSA as well as shares with

meat and eggs. A second feature of CSA structure illuminated by the survey is how often

students shop for themselves and perhaps how often a CSA should be distributed. As seen

in Table 5, students grocery shop (grocery) 2.44 times per term, around once every 4

62

weeks. That said, when the mean number of grocery shopping outings is broken down by

CSA interest, the mean for students who are very interested in a CSA is 2.9 grocery

shopping outings per term, about every 3 weeks. With this data in mind it may make sense

to distribute CSA food less frequently. There is a chance that students grocery shop

infrequently due to logistical barriers, and that if the food was easy to get on campus that

they would like to get food more often. Nonetheless, it appears that students may not need

as much food as a standard once a week delivery CSA would provide.

Section B: Types of Food

Another factor relevant to a CSA that should be considered for a pilot program is

what kind of food will be provided for students. In regards to being organic or not,

respondents were on the whole indifferent but the certification was increasingly important

to people who were very interested in the CSA, so it should not be ignored. As seen in Table

9, the importance of the CSA being organic was on average 2.2 on a one to three scale of

importance. The variation in organic preference between students who were somewhat

and very interested in a CSA was small enough however, that if other beneficial qualities

could be achieved by trading off an organic label it should be done, and student support

will likely remain. Especially in light of the ‘practically’ organic farms that surround

Dartmouth, ensuring an organic label on a CSA is not a main priority.

Beyond labels, there are specific student preferences for particular types of food

that could be included in the CSA. The first source of data comes from what types of

products students found most desirable for a CSA program. As seen in Table 6, the number

63

one requested food category was vegetables, then fruit, greens, meat and eggs, and herbs.

The top requested items were apples, blueberries, raspberries, and eggs, followed by

spinach, tomatoes, carrots, watermelon, corn and onions. In creating a CSA its important to

note that students like to items that are easy to cook or can be eaten raw. The food items

that shouldn’t be included are beets, scallions, hard squash, garlic scapes, swiss chard,

parsley, dill, cabbage, radish, fennel and turnips. Students also disclosed what types of food

they usually bought when they grocery shopped, listing products slightly different from

what they requested from the CSA. As seen in Table 5 the students mainly buy ‘other

snacks’ in addition to produce, dairy and cereals. These easy to make foods seem to be the

most important for students, and the products included in a CSA should match that

preference. Even though the organizers of a CSA probably have a high level of comfort with

a wide range of vegetables, a typical student does not. A CSA at Dartmouth should show

students the variety of produce available but focus on the high quality and fresh food that

students requested in this survey.

Section C: Pricing

Another important feature to consider is the correct price to charge per CSA share.

There were two questions in the survey that concerned willingness to pay (WTP); the first

asked about an 8 week salad share and the second about an 8 week jumbo share that

included salad, veggies, meat and eggs. Respondents were willing to pay an average of $118

for the salad share and $208 for the jumbo share. That said, those averages are the mean of

all respondents, and thus include the WTP of students who were both interested and not

64

interested in purchasing a CSA. Table 10 contains the multivariate regression of CSA

interest on WTP. The analysis shows that CSA interest had a practically and statistically

significant effect on respondent’s WTP—a one level increase in CSA interest is correlated

with a jump of $25 for the salad share and $48 dollars for the jumbo share. Furthermore,

the WTP for students who are very interested jumped to $135 for the summer share and

$234 for the jumbo share.

Section D: Marketing

Now that the ideal structure, content, and price of the CSA have been established,

there is still the question of what is the best way to market a CSA to Dartmouth students.

When asked what type of label would be most effective in changing purchasing decisions

and perceptions of DDS, students cared most about food labeled as fresh followed by real,

then organic, sustainable, and tasty (Table 3). Thus when marketing the CSA,

communication should emphasize the freshness of the produce and products offered.

Another source of data is student responses to the question of why they were interested or

disinterested in purchasing a CSA. Table 7 shows that the quality of food and type of food in

the CSA was the most frequently cited motivation by students who were very interested in

a CSA. Clearly a major driving factor of CSA interest is the quality of food a CSA would

provide and that motivator should be well advertised and emphasized during any

marketing or outreach programs.

Section E: Other Important Results

65

The survey also asked students what types of food, labels, and changes within DDS’s

operations would have the greatest impact on their purchasing behavior and perceptions of

DDS. While these survey results are not directly impactful on a CSA, they do inform and

confirm the importance of this work. First and foremost the change respondents said

would most positively impact their perceptions of DDS was a CSA option within the meal

plan. The next most beneficial change was increasing local produce followed by using more

humane meats in the dining halls. As seen in Table 3 the median of both a CSA option and

increasing local food was a 5 out of 5, a response meaning strongly positively impact. In

regards to food served by DDS the most important feature across respondents is healthy

(54%), followed by sustainably produced (19%) and local (11%). Respondents were most

impacted by increases in healthy local, sustainably produced food, especially by their

response that the best change DDS could make would be including a CSA in the meal plan.

This student support strengthens the call for change and should further motivate a

Dartmouth CSA option beyond the reasons discussed in the introduction.

Lastly I would like to summarize some basic results of my survey that concern the

representativeness of the sample of respondents. Graduation year was almost exactly

equally distributed in the survey, similar to the Dartmouth population. Unlike age,

residence distribution didn’t reflect reality. At Dartmouth 70% of students live on campus,

10% off campus, 12% in greek houses and 8% in affinity houses (U.S. News). The

distribution of survey respondents differed with 60% of respondents reporting that they

lived on campus, 20% off campus, 13% in greek houses and 7% in affinity houses. This

change in distribution may be reflective of the groups emailed with the survey or just

66

random variation. Nonetheless the skewed increase in off campus students may have

affected the results. Another cause of concern was the overrepresentation of

environmental studies majors, minors and sustainability minors in the sample. In reality

only 2.4% of total undergraduates are engaged in environmental studies department, but

8.8% of total survey respondents were related to envs in the survey. While dramatically

overrepresented, the large number of envs related student respondents did not skew

results towards inflated CSA interest since the multivariate regression showed no

correlation between being an envs student and CSA interest.

67

68

Conclusions Part 1: Practical Applications

The results of this survey show significant buy in from Dartmouth students in terms

of CSA interest. 37.8% of the sample was very interested in buying a CSA at Dartmouth, a

number so high that even if you accounted for eager respondents who were interested but

would likely not follow through, over a quarter of the Dartmouth student population could

be positively affected by becoming a CSA member. Interested respondents were primarily

female, lived in affinity houses, and wanted to cook more for themselves (a response given

by 57% of total respondents). Not only were students bought in, but when asked to rate

different changes DDS could make in terms of the effect it would have on their perceptions

of DDS, creating a CSA option within the meal plan ranked number one in creating a

positive impact. Additionally the survey data revealed student eating preferences that

could be helpful for DDS when structuring the CSA. One feature to note is high student

interest in a fall csa, likely due to its inclusion of the foods students expressed interest in:

apples, blueberries, raspberries, eggs, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, watermelon, corn and

onions, most of which ripen in late summer and early fall. There are also barriers to

overcome when implementing a CSA, notably the lack of time, kitchen space and cooking

ability of students. These barriers could be reduced by giving CSA members snack-like

produce and products as well as easy-to-cook recipes for the vegetables provided.

69

Part 2: Limitations of the Work

My survey results are limited by the number of respondents (only 4% of

Dartmouth’s total population was sampled), because the respondents weren’t selected

through random sampling, and by the gender imbalance of the sample. The

overrepresentation of females may be due in part to the fact that I emailed the survey to my

sorority, which is all female, and did not email the survey to any fraternities. Original

concerns, such as the greater concentration of environmental studies students in the

sample came to rest as involvement with envs showed little to no effect on CSA interest.

The greater limitation of this thesis has to do with the number of students who will

eventually engage with a pilot CSA. The majority of food consumed by Dartmouth students

will always come from the various eateries on campus, not from individual’s kitchens, so to

create major changes in Dartmouth’s food footprint more broad sweeping changes need to

occur inside of its dining halls. That said, the type of changes associated with CSA

membership do respond directly to the issues raised in the introduction about the negative

externalities of industrial agriculture. So while a CSA might create a plethora of benefits, it

may not reach a large enough group of students to make a visible impact on Dartmouth’s

environmental footprint and its regional foodshed. For real transformation, change needs

to occur on all levels with an institutionalized CSA being one important feature, but

changes in institutional procurement guidelines, menu design, student curriculum, and

organic farm engagement being other necessary factors of change.

70

71

Part 3: Ideas for Further Research

This thesis inspired a lot of ideas that could not be fully explored within the scope of

this project but would be valid and practical steps forward. These other ideas concern

other ways to improve the sustainability and wellbeing of both Dartmouth students and

Dartmouth’s food system, and include: meatless mondays, a local food week in late

summer, a local or sustainable food substitution for one major food group (spinach, carrots,

beets), a connection with the Local Mainstreaming Project directed by Kurt Shilser (the

project would connect medium-sized farms with Dartmouth’s broadline distributor

Performance Food Group), a connection with Don McCormick’s to-be-built integrated food

energy system, a local food marketing plan institutionalized within DDS’s staff (consisting

of better product labeling, email blasts, signs and opportunities for feedback), vending

machine products with smaller ecological footprints that support student’s health, a

revamping of Collis Market to include local healthy products for convenient student

purchase, and connecting local sustainable food to Dartmouth Peak Performance

(providing athletes with nutritious produce-centered meals to better fuel athletes

physically and mentally while supporting their long-term health). As this list demonstrates

there are many other programs that could have and should be explored as a part of

Dartmouth’s comprehensive journey towards food sustainability.

In terms of concrete research, there exists an opportunity to perform a deep

analysis of DDS’s carbon footprint and the changes that would result from different

interventions such as those listed above. Of course, carbon footprint is only one part of the

story about food’s impact, and it would be an amazing though impractical project to

72

catalogue the impact of such interventions on biodiversity, soil health, water health,

farmer’s rights, consumer health, and community thriving. Additional areas of research

include analyzing the impact of CSA participation on the local farms producing the shares

and on the students who are participating. In another vein, further research could explore

how DDS could better serve students in their desire to cook more (kitchens, utensils,

cooking classes, recipes), how to make CSA produce more approachable for students, and

how to better incorporate food sustainability issues in Dartmouth’s curriculum and campus

awareness.

73

Bibliography Anderson-Gips, Rose. 2008. “Decoding Food Labels.” Tufts University: Office of Sustainability.

Summer. http://sustainability.tufts.edu/decoding-food-labels Barber, Nancy L. 2009. “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005.”

United States. U.S. Department of the Interior. U.S. Geological Survey. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3098/pdf/2009-3098.pdf

Barlett, Peggy F.. 2011. "Campus Sustainable Food Projects: Critique and Engagement."

American Anthropologist 113.1: 101-15. Web. Beaudreault, Amy R.. 2009. "Natural: Influences of Students' Organic Food Perceptions."

Journal of Food Products Marketing 15.4: 379-91. Web. Bloom, Jonathan. 2010. American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its

Food. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press. Born, Branden, and Mark Purcell. 2006. "Avoiding the Local Trap." Journal of Planning

Education and Research 26.2: 195-207. ProQuest Social Sciences Premium Collection. Web.

Breyman, Steve. 1998. "Sustainability through Incremental Steps? the Case of Campus

Greening at Rensselaer." Greener Management International 23: 117. Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management. Web.

Campbell-Arvai, Victoria, Joseph Arvai, and Linda Kalof. 2014. "Motivating Sustainable Food

Choices the Role of Nudges, Value Orientation, and Information Provision." Environment and Behavior 46.4: 453-75. Web.

Cone, Cynthia A., Andrea Myhre. 2000. “Community-Supported Agriculture: A Sustainable

Alternative to Industrial Agriculture?”. Human Organization 59 no. 2: 187-97. Dahlberg, K. A.. 1979. Beyond the Green Revolution. The Ecology and Politics of Global

Agricultural Development. Plenum Press. Davis, Donald, Melvin Epp, and Hugh Riordan. 2004. “Changes in USDA Food Composition

Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950-1999.” Journal of American College of Nutrition 23 no. 6: 669-82.

Defenders of Wildlife. 2005. “Comments for the Development of USDA Recommendations for the 2007 Farm Bill” 70 Fed. Reg. 35221. June 17.

EPA. 2012. "Managing Nonpoint Source Pollution from Agriculture." November 16.

74

<http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/outreach/point6.cfm>. EPA. 2013. "Agriculture and Food Supply Impacts & Adaptation." Last modified September

9. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/agriculture.html

EPA. 2015. “Overview of Greenhouse Gases.” Last modified May 7th. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

Fields, Scott. 2004. “The Fat of the Land: Do Agricultural Subsidies Foster Poor Health?”

Environmental Health Perspectives 112 no 14: A820-23. Franklin, Remy, and Jasmine Kumalah. “Real Food Survey.” Survey Monkey PDF results.

2012. Friedland, Andy. 2012. “Environmental Studies 2 Lecture.” Dartmouth Professor of

Environmental Studies. Fall. Gustavsson, Jenny et. al. 2011. “Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and

Prevention.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/suistainability/pdf/Global_Food_Losses_and_Food_Waste.pdf

Guthman, Julie. 2004. Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California.

Berkeley: University of California. Print. Harrison, Danielle (Dartmouth Sustainability Office Fellow). Interview by author. In person

discussion. Dartmouth College, May 22 2015. Hesterman, Oran B.. 2011. Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All. ‘

New York: PublicAffairs. Print. Kingsolver, Barbara, Seven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. 2008. Animal Vegetable Miracle.

New York: Harper Perennial. Print.

Krotz, Daniel. 2011. “Small Farms and the Farm Subsidies Scandal.” Huffington Post, March 25. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-krotz/small-farms-and-the-farm-_b_81786 9.html

Macias, Thomas. 2008. “Working Toward a Just, Equitable and Local Food System: The

Social Impact of Community-Based Agriculture.” Social Science Quarterly 89 no. 5: 1086-101.

McWilliams, James E.. 2009. Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly

Eat Responsibly. New York: Little, Brown. Print.

75

Minaker, Leia M., Kim D. Raine, Pat Fisher, Mary E. Thompson, Josh Van Loon and Lawrence

D. Frank. 2014. “Food Purchasing From Farmers’ Markets and Community-Supported Agriculture Is Associated With Reduced Weight and Better Diets in a Population-Based Sample.” Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 9 no. 4: 485-97

Musco, Jenna (Program Manager at Dartmouth Sustainability Office). Interview by author. In person discussion. Dartmouth College, May 22 (2015).

NFWM. 2015. “Low wages”. National Farm Worker Ministry Website. Accessed May 22.

http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm-worker-issues/low-wages/. Ostrom, Marcia Ruth. 2007. "Community supported agriculture as an agent of change: Is it

working." In Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability, edited by C. Clare Hinrichs and Thomas A. Lyson, 99-120. University of Nebraska Press.

Pohlman, Lucia G. 2012. “Modern Farming and the Farm Bill: How Policy Shapes our

Environment and our Food.” Final Research Paper for Urbanization and the Environment with Professor Jackson.

Riedl, Brian. 2007. “How Farm Subsidies Harm Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too.”

Heritage Foundation Executive Summary Backgrounder no. 2043. June 19. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/06/how-farm-subsidies-harm-ta xpayers-consumers-and-farmers-too

U.S. News. 2015. "Dartmouth College: Student Life." U.S. News & World Report Education. http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/dartmouth-college 2573/student-life

USDA. 2013. “Irrigation and Water Use.” Economic Research Service. Last Modified June 7 2013. http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-management/irrigation-water-use. aspx

USDA. 2015. “Organic Agriculture.” United States Department of Agriculture. January 9th.

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid =organic-agriculture.html

Weber, Christopher L., and H. Scott Matthews. 2008. Food-miles and the relative climate

impacts of food choices in the united states. Environmental Science & Technology 42 (10) (March 4, 2008): 3508-13.

Weber, Karl. 2009. Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer --

76

and What You Can Do about It. New York: PublicAffairs. Print. Wharton, Christopher and Alison Harmon. 2009. “University Engagement Through Local

Food Enterprise: Community-Supported Agriculture on Campus.” Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 4 no. 2: 112-28.

Worthington, Virginia. 2001. “Nutritional Quality of Organic Versus Conventional Fruits, Vegetables, and Grains. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 7 no. 2: 161-73.

77

Appendix 1: Student Survey

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

Appendix 2: Do File from Stata Data Analysis

86