Uni Greens — The Northampton Campus Allotment Scheme
One way that you can really save both the environment and money is by growing your own vegetables and we are giving it a go!
As part of Changemaker Refreshers in January, the Changemaker Hub delivered a Food Waste Hackathon, exploring ways that everyone can get involved in reducing food waste and the impact our food has on our environment.
Since then we launched a Campus Allotment Scheme with aims to create a collective of vegetable growers providing sustainable food to the community, which will ultimately reconnect people with where their food comes from.
Business and Entrepreneurship student Gianluca is leading the team of volunteers in getting the allotment off the ground, tutoring the group in organic fertilisers and hydroponics (growing plants without soil for the rest of us).
“I started thinking how can we make food more cost effective and accessible to everybody? In the first year we sold lettuce bags to the Pavillion, and we tried to grow strawberries but we had a problem of man power. My vision for the campus allotment is urban farming; cooperatively supplying the local community with affordable healthy food. This is student-led at its heart. I want to encourage a change in attitude towards food, what you eat and where it comes from.”
The scheme is looking for more volunteers to help out every Wednesday from 2–4pm. Get involved by emailing communityplus@northampton.ac.uk or visiting here for more information.
The team is currently completing some market research to determine how best to take the allotment forward. Please click here to give your opinion.
