Meet Elizabeth! She graduated in 2020 with a double main in French and Francophone Research and Studio Artwork with a Meals Research Certificates. She has all the time had an curiosity in meals and sustainable agriculture. She joined us as a pupil farmer within the fall of her sophomore 12 months and continued her involvement all through her time at Dickinson.
Elizabeth has fond recollections from her time as a pupil farmer. She significantly remembers the summer season between her junior and senior 12 months the place she joined the Summer season crew and had the chance to “co-run” the livestock operation with Lindsay Hutchinson, one of many apprentices on the time. One in all her favourite DCF recollections have been sheep upkeep days, the place she went by the entire herd to clip their nails and verify for worms. It was arduous work and tense, she says, however she loved working intently with every particular person animal and getting a really feel for the herd, as entire. Elizabeth beloved working each veg and livestock, and says she discovered a lot working beneath Matt, Jenn, and Will.
Following commencement, she accepted a 6-month apprenticeship at Ridge to Reef Farm on St. Croix, a permaculture farm and the one USDA licensed natural farm within the USVI. She then briefly bartended at a neighborhood brewery in St. Thomas, after which returned to Ridge to Reef as an Assistant Supervisor till in the present day. She manages farm operations with a crew of round 10 individuals (varies from month to month) and their CSA program, which entails working with and sourcing from different native farmers to produce issues like goat cheese, honey, and different fruits to their members. She can be working with the Timber that Feed Basis on a small tree nursery challenge to produce the area people with Breadfruit bushes as a technique to cut back meals imports and meals insecurity on the islands. She loves tropical fruits and sharing her ardour with different farmers. In her phrases, “it’s actually particular to work collectively to feed our small neighborhood as a result of it actually seems like we’re making a big effect.” Future final targets embrace beginning her personal farm within the USVI as a way to proceed feeding her neighborhood and enhance meals safety and meals entry.
A enjoyable truth about Elizabeth is that she lives and works fully outdoors. There are not any partitions or something like that in her “home” – it’s all open air, so when it’s scorching and dry, she’s scorching and dry, and when it’s wet and moist, she’s additionally wet and moist. She’s actually embraced residing this fashion as a result of it’s related her together with her crops by fairly actually sharing the identical residing circumstances.
