Vermont college students try farming

POULTNEY, Vt. -- Devin Lyons typically starts his days this summer cooking fresh eggs for breakfast from the farm's chicken coop. Then, depending on the weather, he and a dozen other college students might cut hay in the field using a team of oxen, turn compost or weed vegetable beds.

While other college students are in stuffy classrooms, about a dozen are earning credit tending a Vermont farm. For 13 weeks, 12 credits and about $12,500, the Green Mountain College students plow fields with oxen or horses, milk cows, weed crops and grow and make their own food, part of an intensive course in sustainable agriculture using the least amount of fossil fuels.

"Lots of schools study sustainable agriculture but I don't think any of them put it into practice," said spokesman Kevin Coburn.

There are no tractors on the 22 acres next to the brick campus of the small liberal arts college on the edge of the town -- just two teams of oxen, and goats, pigs, two cows and chickens.

Students sleep in tents on the field's edge, next to a river. They spend about six hours a week in classes in the old farmhouse, learning theory on organic crop and animal management; management of farm systems; development of agricultural technologies with a focus on human and animal power; and the social and cultural importance of regional food. The rest of the time they're out in the field, or doing homework and working on research projects.

"So they're actually seeing the applications firsthand," said Kenneth Mulder, manager of the college's Cerridwen Farm, who runs the summer program.

College farming is growing. According to the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, more than 80 schools now have hands-on and classroom-based farm programs. Many of them are organic vegetable farms, but students don't necessarily earn as many credits as Green Mountain College students do, nor do they get to work with teams of oxen. Sterling College, also in Vermont, has a similar program.

"It's traditionally been one of the leaders in environmental studies, and it is because they put their studies where their mouth is in really getting students out and doing and practicing the sort of environmentally enlightened work that some talk about in class," said Roland King, a spokesman for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Green Mountain College hopes to turn out farmers and has several alumni running farms nearby. Other students are interested in food-related fields -- whether it's organizing not-for-profits, working on policy or overseas development work.

On the Net

* Green Mountain College: www.greenmtn.edu

* Farming for Credit Directory: www.rodaleinstitute.org/ffc_directory