Local Food Production and Institutional Purchasing: Assessing Producer Consumer Relationships at Duke University
Abstract
Green purchasing policies are one aspect of campus sustainability that has been receiving
increasingly more interest at Duke University in the past three years. Concurrently,
locally supported food systems have been developing in the Research Triangle area,
represented by farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture, and retail cooperatives.
Furthermore, within the Duke Dining Services office, increased purchasing of locally
produced food has been identified as one of the top three opportunities being pursued
by the Dining Director. This study utilizes a farm-based survey to develop knowledge
of the producer subsystem of the local food system, and interviews of dining operators
at Duke to understand the current use of local food in purchasing policies. Local,
small farmers are still relying heavily on farmers’ markets as their main source of
income, but many are branching out into other markets such as retail and restaurants.
Of the dining operators with the ability to use local food in their operations, six
out of ten were currently choosing to purchase locally, although some more than others.
This provides the university with a strong base to develop future policies to encourage
increased relationships between farmers and operators.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3716Citation
Chamberlin, Carl (2011). Local Food Production and Institutional Purchasing: Assessing Producer Consumer Relationships
at Duke University. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3716.Collections
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