Mapping the Amherst Food System
By Parker Richardson ’22: Food Systems Fellow
When I first came to Amherst, I knew I wanted to work on the farm. The spring of my first year, I would wake up early on Tuesday mornings and walk past the tennis courts, through the woods to the core site of Book & Plow. There, I met Maida and Kaylee, the farm managers, who taught me how to sow seeds and clean up the fields for the next growing season.
Through the farm, I heard about the Food Justice Alliance (FJA), a student group dedicated to advancing food justice in the Pioneer Valley. I started attending the meetings in the McCaffrey room of Keefe and learning about what exactly food justice is. To me, food justice is about creating equity and access at every step of the food system. This includes workers’ rights in the fields, factories, and dining halls, as well as universal access to nutritious and fresh food.
At the time (and to this day), the group was talking about workers’ rights in Val (where there’s a past and present of exploitation), as well as the lack of meaningful connections between the student body and staff. Curious about bridging this gap, I started working in the kitchen of Val, where I met Kaden, Keith, Indy, Sue, Fatima, John, Susan, Robin, among others.
In the fall of 2021, students and workers came together to form the Amherst Labor Alliance (ALA) to support Val workers’ rights on campus. During the pandemic, Val staff have been pushed to their limits by understaffing, inadequate pay, and, for many, lack of healthcare. The ALA has planned several demonstrations and seeks to create a space where students and staff can unite and discuss the best avenues to advocate for workers’ rights.
Just when I was about to advocate for paid student positions to hold our college’s food system to socially and environmentally sustainable standards, the Office of Sustainability came back to life. So I applied to be the Food Systems Fellow during my last semester here at Amherst.
With the help of many minds—the other sustainability fellows, Margot, the Green Dean with the Sustainability Office, Wes the Director of the Office, Maida and Kaylee at the farm, Steve, the dining sourcing manager, my friends at Val, Joe, the Head of Dining—I’ve been slowly piecing together a map of the food systems here, which is simultaneously very simple and very complicated.
I want anyone and everyone in the community to be able to access this map to better understand how food, waste, and labor flow both within the Amherst College bubble and beyond. My hope is that this map adapts to reflect a more sustainable Amherst as we work as a community to challenge and change the system we have in place.
It’s also my (achievable) dream to form a Food Systems Committee that designs a set of goals, standards, and metrics for a sustainable food system. This group will consist of staff representatives from Val, the farm, and, and students, such as representatives from FJA.
If there’s anything I’ve learned and relearned during my time as the Food Systems fellow (and my time at Amherst in general), it’s that this community has the power to shape itself. It feels like it’s a matter of coming together, dreaming about just how sustainable we could be, and choosing a place to jump in.
