Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 61.60
Liaison Mike Versteege
Submission Date Feb. 3, 2012
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.1

University of Alberta
PAE-T2-12: Farmers' Market

Status Score Responsible Party
n/a 0.00 / Lisa Dockman
Program Lead (Outreach & Engagement)
Office of Sustainability

This credit was marked as Not Applicable for the following reason:

Institution is located in an area that is served by an existing farmers' market.

All of our campuses are served by existing farmers' markets. Therefore, this credit is Not Applicable. However, we wanted to note the following:

For two years, during Sustainability Awareness Week in October, UAlberta has hosted a farmers' market in the Students’ Union Building. The event brings a variety of local, healthy, vegan, and gluten-free products to campus and makes this kind of food accessible to a greater number of campus community members. The farmers' market is also an opportunity to raise awareness regarding the food culture on campus.

In 2010, the inaugural farmers' market was hosted by the student-led organization called the Campus Sustainability Coalition. The event not only had more than a dozen food vendors, but also featured twelve free "Do-It-Yourself" workshops to increase the university community's knowledge of food production and preparation. Skills that people learned included canning, sprouting, no-cook bread making and community-based agriculture. More than 300 people took part in the market.

The following year in 2011, the market was organized by the Students’ Union Sustainable Food Initiative (SFI), an organization that focuses on creating a campus food culture that emphasizes affordable, nutritious food, and addresses issues relating to the environmental and social impacts of food. The farmers' market featured fresh, local peanuts, preserves, fresh pasta, kettle corn, packaged meats, seasonal vegetables, and locally-produced wine. Purchasing the food directly from vendors also increased understanding of the importance of selecting foods sustainably. In total, more than 1,000 people took advantage of the market, elevating interest and momentum for more regularly scheduled markets in the future.

The initiative was supported by a Community Service-Learning grant.

You can read more about the annual Sustainability Awareness Week here:

http://www.sustainability.ualberta.ca/Projects/SustainabilityAwarenessWeek.aspx

Learn more about the Sustainable Food Initiative here:
http://sustainablefooduofa.wordpress.com/

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