The Eckerd College Community Farm is a one-acre sustainable farm and food forest situated between the soccer and baseball fields in the heart of Eckerd’s campus in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Built on the foundation of the student garden that broke ground in 2010, the farm provides produce to the campus, while creating opportunities for hands-on education, service, and recreation.
Through classes, workshops, performance events, and open volunteer days, the farm seeks to engage and build community on campus and beyond and contribute to the health and well-being of students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding ecosystem.
How the community farm works
Whether through formal coursework, internships, work-study, Reflective Service Learning, or extracurricular volunteering with the Garden Club, students participate in every level of production, from planning to planting, weeding, harvesting, and composting.
The farm is guided by an advisory committee composed of students, faculty, and staff. Daily operations are collaboratively managed by a farm manager within the Office of Sustainability and a faculty director, Dr. David Himmelfarb.
Sustainability and service
As a “liberal arts farm,” the community farm embodies the idea that truly sustainable food production necessitates the insights of many disciplines from the natural and social sciences to the arts and humanities.
Over time, the farm seeks to create a community hub for cultivating and disseminating knowledge about sustainable agriculture in South Florida and supporting local efforts to promote a more environmentally sustainable and socially just food system.
