Claire Fox graduated Dickinson in 2011 with a double main in Environmental Research and Worldwide Research. She started her journey with DCF as a pupil farmer in her senior yr and went on to develop into an apprentice upon commencement. Claire’s curiosity in DCF was sparked by a mix of Michael Pollen’s An Omnivore’s Dilemma – breaking down the ethical, ecological, and social ramification of our industrialized consuming habits – and a deep dive into the various aspects of sustainability. She realized her drive to develop meals, make even a tiny distinction within the meals system, and provides again to the group and easily couldn’t move up a gap on the School Farm as a result of, “Everyone eats, ya know?”.
Since her time at DCF, she continues to heart her life round meals and farming. After the apprenticeship, she moved to Costa Rica to work for the College of Discipline Research. There she managed their natural farm and fruit orchard and honed her expertise in of composting, vermiculture, and built-in pest administration. Afterwards, Claire went to check environmental administration and forestry on the Nicholas College of the Surroundings at Duke College and later centered her grasp’s thesis on the impacts of local weather change on espresso manufacturing in Latin America. This opened doorways to journey to Peru to attach with espresso farmers. On their mountain-side farms, she discovered how local weather change altered the phenology of espresso vegetation, crop administration strategies, and gained perception into the worldwide espresso market. Whereas at Duke, she additionally labored part-time for his or her faculty farm, the Duke Campus Farm. As we speak, Claire lives in Eugene, Oregon and works for a neighborhood nonprofit land belief to preserve particular lands and waters for habitats, trails, and watershed well being. She actually enjoys the work that she does and is worked up to be part of a company that’s “re-defining what conservation seems like and co-creating a future that’s extra equitable, simply, and accessible.”
Claire says her time at DCF was an “extension of my schooling.” The hands-on agricultural expertise principally earned her an honorary diploma in soil science. Moreover, she developed her management, delegation, and teamwork expertise, deepened her respect for group engagement, and relished on this outside classroom the place she was free to show mental concepts into real-life purposes. The farm additionally strengthened her values in holistic techniques and pondering, and the significance of endurance and positivity.
Her favourite reminiscence of DCF is of our outstanding carrots and all of the sizes and shapes they arrive in. She recollects main a gaggle of Weed N Feeders out to prod a carrot mattress with digging forks – the cries of amazement that got here from the volunteers as they unearthed these beautiful carrots from the soil is caught in her reminiscence. ”Harvesting carrots by no means loses its magic”.
Claire stays concerned in meals manufacturing by way of her group backyard plot. She loves rising greens and final season tried her palms at big pumpkins! By the top of the season, she’s earned the grand title of “pumpkin physician” after therapeutic a break up on her prize pumpkin. She sterilized the break up and dripped scorching beeswax into it to guard it for the rest of the season. It labored!
