Student creates grassroots movement to get local and organic food at SCAD
By Ezra Salkin
A group of students and others concerned about the environment are pushing for SCAD to develop what they describe as the “most progressive” food service program in the country.
Third year student Andy McCoy holds informal meetings at the Sentient Bean every Tuesday at 8 p.m. Sustainable food has been the central issue. These informal assemblies have been dubbed “The Alternative Learning Forum.”
The group advocates for more community involvement and of how and where SCAD obtains its food, with the aim of getting the school to source its food locally and from organic growers.
“The concern is one that involves ecology and health, and it is also a social issue. That is why it is imperative that we know from ‘seed to compost’ where our food comes from,” McCoy said.
It is a full circle philosophy, he explained, aimed to foster an emotional investment in the student body about food.
McCoy asserted buying locally would dramatically reduce petroleum consumption.
“An apple wouldn’t have to travel 100 miles to get here by truck,” he pointed out. “As far as health is concerned, it wouldn’t be necessary to pack meat in ammonia, an obviously toxic substance, which is used as a preservative when transporting meat great distances,” he added.
For the group, sourcing food locally becomes a social issue as well, as it can help assure that laborers are not mistreated.
“We can rest knowing that there aren’t illegal migrant workers, essentially working as slave labor, working 12 hours a day picking tomatoes,” McCoy said.
Another problem with the system as it stands, according to McCoy, is the big agriculture corporations, or “Big Aggro.” These corporations are said to destroy biodiversity as well as local businesses.
From McCoy’s point of view, mega farms—sometimes as large as 10 square miles, or 50,000 acres—destroy all life other than the select crop they are being paid to cultivate.
“They are unchecked and unsustainable,” he said.
Another advantage to local procurement is that it would stimulate the local economy.
The term organic, as defined by USDA, is more multifarious than it would seem—depending on who is asked, one may get a different explanation of what organic means, McCoy explained.
To groups like the Alternative Learning Forum, it means that no synthetic fertilizers (nitrates) or pesticides are used. Also, for something to be accurately deemed organic, farmers have to take many variables into account such as the water supply and when a crop is in and out of season.
The long term effects of nitrates and pesticides aren’t fully known, as the issue hasn’t been under scrutiny long enough. There are many theories, but McCoy said there is no upside.
“They are all negative, some more so than others, but as much as big industry fights to defend these products, none of them are good,” he said. “When there are people wearing bio-hazard suits dosing ‘RoundUp’, essentially a weed killer, all over the crops that kills everything except for exactly whatever it is that they want to survive, I think it’s fair to speculate that whatever they’re doing is not good for you.”
How does the Alternative Learning Forum aim to achieve this collective awareness about local and organic harvesting?
“We’d like students to have the opportunity to volunteer and work on a farm. This would give them the opportunity to see and learn whether or not it is good soil that is being cultivated, or is it soil that is latent with lead and pesticides? And whether or not there is any other nefarious activity going on,” McCoy said.
“Right now, all we know is that the major food contractor that SCAD works with is Sodexo, but nothing else. We have no idea where that food comes from or how it’s grown,” he said.
“It is a circular process, that at each stage would bring cognizance to the others.”
McCoy stated that the Forum acts completely independently of SCAD, as its interests extend far beyond SCAD. He associates it as a group more in tune with benefiting Savannah as a whole, rather than just the school.
Moreover, he believes it would be a clear conflict of interest to be working under the school’s guise.
However, he was careful to state, that although autonomous of SCAD, the Forum is not in opposition to it.
“We want SCAD to be the best school that it absolutely can be. That means standing up to it when we don’t agree but, at the same time, supporting and applauding it when we are in accord, such as when SCAD started a single-stream recycling system in the school buildings,” McCoy said.
“There is nothing secret about our meetings and we offer an open invitation to anyone within as well as outside SCAD to come and listen. This is really about getting the conversation to start,” he added.
