College Times

Issue date: 3/20/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Ryan Ruiz

Several student organizations, Arizona State University Campus Dining and a contingent of student volunteers have teamed up behind this common notion to harvest the fruit from hundreds of trees on ASU's campuses to be donated to on-campus dining halls.

Kristen Rasmussen, a nutritionist with ASU Campus Dining's parent company, Aramark, said that preventing unnecessary wastefulness and promoting sustainability is a driving force behind the Campus Harvest project.

"They waste thousands and thousands of pounds of citrus every year," Rasmussen said. "Not to mention other foods. It's just ridiculous to waste all that."

In Tempe, navel, Seville and blood oranges, cumquats, limequats, lemons and pecans grow in nearly every area of campus.

Rasmussen said that before the project, members of ASU's grounds crew tried their best to donate whatever fruit they didn't take for themselves to local animal shelters, but that the majority of it was disposed of on ASU's dime.

Now the fruit will be served on the same campus instead, which Rasmussen says will save ASU money in the form of nixing extra wages paid to the grounds crew and disposal costs.

"How much more local can you get, right? First of all, no cost: no transport cost, no fruit cost."

Rasmussen also added that the non mass-produced fruit is very healthy and ecologically-sound.

"Eating food locally, it's all-organic production. They don't use any pesticides or anything."

The locally-grown, organic approach of Campus Harvest is one of the reasons that members from VegAware, a newly-formed club for vegetarians on the Tempe campus, were so quick to participate.

"A lot of the things that are grown on campus are organic because, economically, that's all they can afford," said Caitlin Joseph, co-founder of VegAware, "which is a more sustainable choice than using harsh chemicals."

"Using food that's grown locally is a more sustainable choice, just because it eliminates the carbon-footprint that you get from transporting produce," Joseph said.

Joseph said the partnership between the club and Campus Dining was the product of a long, ongoing dialogue between the two groups regarding standards of sustainability in the dining halls and elsewhere on campus.

"I think it's a way to help encourage ASU to show that they are trying to make more sustainable choices," Joseph said, "and kind of model how that can be implemented in the community."

As simple a concept as harvesting fruit may seem, the group faced quite a few frustrating obstacles before getting clearance to start, Rasmussen said.

"Everyone thinks it's a good idea to use the produce from campus in the dining halls," Rasmussen said. "It's just that we have to make that connection between the grounds and the food-service, and you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it done because it's such a big corporation."

The group also faces stringent restrictions in the form of state regulations regarding food cultivation, which makes it somewhat difficult to attain the "food grade" stamp necessary to serve produce in any dining facility.

"The health inspection's probably the hardest part, because you have to train the students on the proper way to pick, and which fruit is okay, which fruit isn't okay," Rasmussen said. "When we pick it, we have to make sure that everything's incredibly sanitary."

But Rasmussen added that any difficulties or frustrations associated with harvesting are far outweighed by the positives for the students.

"When students harvest food and then eat it themselves and see the whole process, it gives them a better appreciation for grounds [workers], better appreciation for the food, knowledge where the food comes from, awareness … it's kind of a life-lesson."

For more information, visit the "Fresh & Healthy" section of ASU Campus Dining's website, ASU.CampusDish.com