March 2015 | The Garden 8988 The Garden | March 2015

Student Eats Student EatsGROW yOuR OWn

GROW yOuR OWn

challengeA series of thriving food-growing schemes, supported by the National Union of Students, is providing respite, communality, a source of nutritional food and a place to learn useful life skillsAuthors: Anisa Gress, News Editor, The Garden, and Karen Murphy, Trainee Online Journalist. Photography: Neil Hepworth

A garden for allA Student Eats project set up in 2007 at Staffordshire University, Growing Concern and its associated Extreme Gardening Society, takes up 60 x 30m (200 x 100ft) or approximately six allotments. Located opposite the main campus in Stoke, it is run by Dave Allman, Head of the Student Enabling Centre. His work and involvement with students and the local community has earned the project the highest possible Level 5 award (‘Outstanding’) in the RHS It’s Your Neighbourhood scheme. It is a perfect illustration that students of different subjects can enjoy and use the garden to further their studies and interests.

The reasons students enjoy gardening here include taking a break from the pressures of work, producing home-made food and flowers, learning about growing seasonally and photographing the changing seasons. Of equal importance, says Dave, is that the garden can be a bolt hole for troubled students, helping to support mental health and offer a neutral ground for socialising. ‘Some people also come here to “up” their eco-credentials.’

Specifically the money gained through Student Eats was used to buy four greenhouses, a polytunnel, a water butt and new pathway bases to improve wheelchair access.

As with most allotments there is no electrical power, so as part of a geography project the shed was fitted with solar panels. This now powers a light and a 24-volt freezer used for surplus produce. Geography students are also looking to study biological control so the site could become the hub of their experiments, and textile students are keen to grow flax and crops such as elderberry and tansy to study natural dyes.

The long-held perception that undergraduates do nothing mildly energetic (other than sport) is being challenged by a national food-growing project. Originally devised to enable students to produce their own fresh, seasonal food

and give them reason to get outdoors, Student Eats has developed quickly over the past two years. Today, plots make an important contribution to life on campus and have become useful teaching tools in subjects including art, archaeology and business studies.

From fairly small beginnings, piloted across England in 2012 with 18 tertiary educational institutions, Student Eats, run by the National Union of Students (NUS), has now been embraced by 26 universities. A grant from the Big Lottery Fund under its Local Food programme helped the project get off the ground, but it restricted funding to English institutions. Now this grant has come to an end, Ágnes Knoll, Student Eats programme manager, is excited to be looking at different funding streams (for example, business enterprise projects) that will open up food growing to campuses across the UK.

Student Eats and its model for getting projects up and running has helped several universities to go on and

apply successfully for part of a much bigger pot of money available through the NUS Students’ Green Fund. Using £5 million from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, it supports projects that improve sustainability, encourage social enterprise and boost green credentials.

Overcoming barriersAccording to Ágnes, there are several reasons why universities are reluctant to start a food-growing project. ‘Firstly they are unsure what can be grown and harvested between September and July. There is also cost and a three-yearly turnaround of students. We have overcome these with Student Eats.’

Each site receives, on average, £6,000 to help with start-up and running costs. This covers things such as polytunnels, compost, seeds and tools. Ágnes liaises with each university to find an appropriate parcel of land and has devised a seed and planting calendar of fast-growing crops that fit well with the academic year. ‘We also surveyed students to find out their fruit and vegetable preferences, and wanted international students to tell us what they used in their cultural cooking to see if we could grow them, either outside or in tunnels,’ she says.

Dave Allman (centre), founder of Growing

Concern, a Student Eats initiative at Staffordshire

University, serves home-grown tomato

and pepper soup to student volunteers.

Ágnes Knoll, Student Eats programme manager, designed the NUS Student Eats exhibit which won a Silver-Gilt Flora medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2014.

Bountiful raised beds at Staffordshire University’s Student Eats initiative Growing Concern.

Funds raised from Student Eats allowed Staffordshire’s garden (above) to be made fully wheelchair accessible. As well as the many students who enjoy the garden, staff (below) also volunteer to help out.

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90 The Garden | March 2015

Student EatsGROW yOuR OWn

Ideally, once the plot is up and running (plots vary in size according to the land available), its continuation and development is student-led. Committees have been set up which ensure experienced students are always involved, while others have more staff input. Linking up with a local community group (or several) to run the plot is encouraged. All volunteers, be they students or community members, are able to take home half their harvest, with the other half sold back to university kitchens or in student shops.

Horticultural entrepreneursSome groups have developed the entrepreneurial role even further. University of Gloucestershire students have established the Cheltenham Chilli Company. Volunteers and students grow chillies on site, while other ingredients are sourced as locally and sustainably as possible. Students are also responsible for the company’s marketing, sales and business development, and a former student has been making chutneys.

At the University of Roehampton in southwest London, student-grown fresh produce is used in The Hive, its café

adjacent to the main growing area, which recently won a Soil Association award for the best place for Organic Eating Out. Known as Growhampton, gardening is carried out on a main site and four additional smaller growing areas at each campus.

Student Eats project funding lasts for two years, after which they should and have been able to support them-selves financially. They can pay a few hundred pounds to the NUS to continue to receive Student Eats support, help and advice, which goes back into funding new projects.

RHS community campaignsThe RHS promotes a number of initiatives which support communities in greening their schools and local areas, such as RHS Campaign for School Gardening, RHS Britain in Bloom and RHS It’s Your Neighbourhood, which assesses Student Eats projects to award their achievements (Level 5 being the highest). ✤ For more, visit www.rhs.org.uk/communities and www.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening

Honey from hives on the University of Exeter Com­munity Garden, estab lished in 2011 by members of the Students’ Guild, the university and members of the community.

Produce choice at the University of Greenwich

Edible Garden (above left) is enhanced by a new

forest­fruits orchard.

Madeline Parsons from Staffordshire University

(above right) cuts dried flowers for her

fine art studies.

University of Exeter garden committee member Adrian Berryman (below left) gives planting advice to students.

Student volunteers grow food from around the world at the Newcastle University

allotment (below right).

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