Word: farm
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...Ward cuts an unimposing figure in his torn jeans, soil-smeared shirt, and high wellie farming boots as he crosses the strawberry patch to greet us. Jim and brother Bob, both self-described “tree huggers,” have quietly developed Wards Berry Farm into a 150-acre experiment in sustainable agriculture since their father bought the land just outside Boston in 1981. Now their farm could become the newest supplier to Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) as Harvard seeks out green food sources...
...Ward what matters is the “stewardship of air, soil, and water.” He describes the tomatoes, squash, and peppers his farm grows in terms of the “experiences” they evoke, and every spring dozens of suburban Bostonian teenagers come to his farm to experience the lost art of sustainable farming. If HUDS signs on, Harvard students may soon be following suit...
...Changing meat suppliers could also reduce the cruelty that animals on factory farms suffer. HUDS’ main meat wholesaler, US Foodservice, doesn’t enforce meaningful humane standards on its producers, with the result that pork can come from pregnant sows confined in crates so narrow they can’t turn around and chicken from slaughterhouses with no humane slaughter laws. In such conditions, antibiotics are the only way to keep animals alive, and farm antibiotic overuse is diluting the efficacy of human medicines...
...Student pressure has the potential to change this. Last year HUDS spent $30,000 on shifting 25 percent of its egg supply from Kreider Farms after 1,000 students signed a petition protesting the battery cage conditions that chickens are kept in at the farm (see kreidercruelty.com). For now all liquid eggs still come from Kreider...
...Back on Wards Berry Farm, there’s a vision of what the sustainable future of food might look like. Between a new peach orchard and a tomato field, a series of outdoor enclosures, and hoop barns house egg-laying hens and wool-bearing sheep. The chickens are free to scratch in the dust and the spring lambs to graze on grass. The manure that the animals produce is used to fertilize the crops and no antibiotics or hormones are needed to keep these free-ranging animals healthy...