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	<span class="float-left"><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Tending-basil-250pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 266px; float: right; " />While there are definitely some commands in the Bible that I try to live out literally, I never imagined following one quite so literally as I have this summer. In true Genesis 2:15 fashion, I have been &ldquo;tilling and keeping&rdquo; the gardens I have been placed in. This tilling and keeping has meant many days of dirty feet, wide-brimmed sun hats, and squished bug guts on my fingers as I&rsquo;ve been working with students to care for two small organic gardens on the University of Michigan campus. One of these gardens, run by a student group called&nbsp;<a href="http://cultivatingcommunity.com/" target="_blank">Cultivating Community</a>, has been around since 2004, but another one is just starting with a small plot this summer before growing into a campus farm in the coming years.</span></p>
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	Urban vegetable gardens are &ldquo;cropping&rdquo; up around the country in front lawns, at schools, in abandoned lots, and on rooftops, some out of necessity and some as a response to remedy&nbsp;a growing separation from our food. This desire to grow food is spreading at U of M as well, as evidenced by the rising number of students calling for some way to learn more about the intricacies of the food system. For these students, it&rsquo;s not enough to debate the ethics of eating, growing, transporting, and subsidizing food. They want to get out of the classroom and put more than their minds to work understanding what it takes to feed people well. Whether it comes from an economic, environmental, spiritual, or social need or conviction, even the most humble excursion into gardening can end up growing heaps more than just vegetables.&nbsp;</p>
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	Gardening is truly a communal experience: critters hiding in the dirt (wanted or unwanted), squirrels and groundhogs waiting to snatch the first fruits, and passersby wondering what in the world could be worth so much time hunched over in the sun tending and admiring plants. The time I&rsquo;ve spent with student volunteers and co-workers in my gardens this summer has been full of conversation as well as lots of teaching and learning. Like me, many of these students are driven to the garden by a serious sense of idealism. A desire to change the world through small actions. Or maybe a desire to escape the world as we know it through these actions. Maybe some just want to find the wonder in watching a plant grow from seed to flower to fruit, changing slowly, but every once in a while dramatically, noticeably. Others may want to eat healthier (or just get free food no matter how healthy it is!), learn a new skill, or meet new people. Whatever their reason for stopping by the garden, it&rsquo;s my hope that they leave with more than just a handful of kale.&nbsp;</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}The-Farm-300pxl.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 166px; float: left; " />In order to facilitate this kind of learning and community building, a group of Masters students at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) and I are working to implement a&nbsp;<a href="http://umsfp.com/" target="_blank">Sustainable Food Program</a>&nbsp;that will bring together food-related student initiatives (like Cultivating Community), professors, and community members in Ann Arbor and Detroit to share resources and wisdom. The central hub of activity will be a two acre campus farm, located just outside of town at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, with satellite gardens spread across the U of M campus. We know that the farm and gardens will scarcely make a dent in the food budget of the university, but it will make a small contribution to helping the university achieve its goal of purchasing 20% of food locally by 2025. More importantly, it will be a resource for education (both formal and informal through classes and service-learning) and community building (check out the&nbsp;<a href="http://ausable.org/news_and_resources/blog/conversations_local_agriculture_and_the_church#.UANqj_WIuSo" target="_blank">discussion</a>&nbsp;about local food and community from the blog this spring!).</p>
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	Because U of M is not an agricultural school, we are in a unique position (along with the other universities ahead of us on this issue) to impact change. Students generally don&rsquo;t come to U of M to learn how to farm, and most of them won&rsquo;t leave campus looking for jobs in agriculture. My fellow campus farm team members and I are working hard to foster a community where not just the hippie kids in the environmental studies program congregate. Everyone eats food, so every student has a connection to the farm already! Students and faculty from a range of departments, from art to zoology and everything in between, can connect food to the curriculum. Everyone from athletes to students in the Greek system will be able to get involved in volunteer projects, workshops, and garden parties. And while they are involved, we can channel that idealism or that spark of curiosity or maybe just that desire for free food into critical thinking that can turn into action when those students disperse to new communities and diverse professions, all with some kind of power to influence the food system through growing, eating, marketing, regulating, or researching some aspect of food.</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Students-250pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 266px; float: right; " />The link between food, justice, health, and well-being is clear in my mind, but working on this project has allowed me to lay the groundwork for making those connections clearer for other students. While I&rsquo;ve been weeding the gardens this summer, I have also been pulling insights from students about how they see food fitting into their lives and their communities, and each of these students is coming from a different perspective. If even a few students can leave U of M with at least a notion that food is connected to a myriad of other social, economic, and environmental issues, then all the sweat and sunburn that has led to sustainable food on campus through the years has been worth it. As my team members and I look forward to finishing up our work on this project next spring, we know we&rsquo;ve got a lot of work to do yet, with the goal of long-term funding always looming overhead; however,&nbsp;&nbsp;we&rsquo;re also relishing the progress and the&nbsp;&nbsp;connections that have been made to date.&nbsp;</p>
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	So, my &ldquo;tilling and keeping&rdquo; this summer has been more than just an exercise in organic pest control and fail-safe tomato-staking. I have been carefully tending the U of M food movement that has been handed down to me from previous generations of hopeful students while sowing the seeds of an even greater movement that students to come will both enjoy the fruits of and will continue to grow when my care-taking term here has finished.</p>
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	<em>Allyson Green is working on a joint MS in Environmental Justice and MPH in Environmental Health at the University of Michigan. Her love for nature and interest in environmental justice stems from growing up in Baraboo, WI, a town rooted in a strong conservation history yet facing controversies over land use and environmental health issues. Her Master&#39;s Project to create community gardening at the UM botanical gardens will be completed over the course of the next school year.</em></p>
