Urban Agriculture Students Dig Into Sustainable Food Production at Winthrop Garden

As seasons change and seedlings take root, students in Loyola’s Urban Agriculture program cultivate sustainable food production strategies in Winthrop Garden. 

Located on the corner of North Winthrop Avenue and West Loyola Avenue, the student-run garden supports surrounding communities’ food systems and promotes environmentally conscious farming practices. 

Winthrop Garden is one station of the Urban Agriculture program, which also includes the School of Environmental Sustainability’s greenhouse and aquaponics systems.

Kevin Erickson, a soil ecology and sustainable agriculture professor, is the Urban Agriculture program manager who runs Winthrop Garden and other campus organizations like the Growers Guild, Nourish LUC and the Food Recovery Network. Erickson said the garden started in 2011 and described it as a streamline machine that has been evolving ever since.

“We’re here to be a part of the food system, not just a money maker in the food system,” Erickson said.

Erickson said the garden’s season runs from April to November, producing around 2,000 pounds of harvest per year and housing over 50 different edible plant species. The program offers around 50 spots for students looking to become interns and student leaders. 

Erickson said 50% of production is sold at markets like the Edgewater Farmers Market, while the other 50% is donated to community and campus food pantries. The program used to run a farmers market of its own but struggled to reopen after COVID-19 restrictions were put in place.

Winthrop Garden employs differing, sustainable agriculture techniques. Erickson said the program prioritizes soil health and biodiversity by enlisting strategies like cover cropping, integrated pest control, native plants, composting using campus leaf pickup, perennial agriculture, crop rotation, high efficiency drip irrigation and site-made fertilizers.

Erickson said all of the methods they use are considered certified organic and they even ran a beekeeping operation until around 2019.

“These methods are a lot more accessible than people think, and there are lots of things people can do to support the soil food web,” Erickson said. “It can be as simple as fermenting biomass like putting grass clippings in water and fermenting it as a good source of nitrogen.”

With winter’s final frost behind them, students working in the garden today are in a busy transition period. Libbie McNamee, a third-year team leader at Winthrop Garden majoring in environmental science and minoring in sociology, said Winthrop Garden faced difficulties from the inconsistent temperatures during the past two months.

McNamee said she and her team are preparing trays of plants to donate to organizations around Chicago like Bronzeville Neighborhood Farm, the Edgewater Environmental Coalition and Parkways for Pollinators. They’re also planning a harvest for the Edgewater Farmers Market in the fall. 

Working in Winthrop Garden allows students to practice problem solving and adaptivity. Donatella Poveda, a fourth-year team leader at Winthrop Garden majoring in environmental science with a concentration in food systems and sustainable agriculture, said flexibility is a significant part of the process.

“There’s a lot you can’t control,” Poveda said. “In the future, being able to adapt to climate change, especially for farming, is a really important skill.”

Some students work in the garden because they’re curious about the subject, while others intend to start careers in the industry. Regardless of their intentions, Erickson said it’s exciting to see the students working together because peer-to-peer mentorship is a rare experience in a university setting, adding further value to the managerial positions.

“We’re getting students internally educated,” Erickson said. “They’re getting experience and then they can go out off campus and do work in Chicago or other areas instead of just in the little bubble of Loyola.”

The Urban Agriculture program is extending their reach outside Loyola by providing plants for the Edgewater Environmental Coalition and Parkways for Pollinators. Winthrop Garden is also growing a year’s worth of transplants for Bronzeville Neighborhood Farm — a community garden in a historically underserved area with high food needs.

Erickson said he considers interaction with the greater Chicago area one of the most meaningful impacts of Winthrop Garden.

“Everybody wins,” Erickson said. “We’re able to use our resources in a way that significantly benefits not only the farm owner, but the whole community surrounding them.”

Erickson said the garden is an important aspect of Loyola’s surrounding residential community — neighbors know the Urban Agriculture students by name, look after the garden and often stop to say hello. 

“The biggest problem we have is that a lot of the neighbors want to sit and talk to our students for hours while we have stuff to do,” Erickson said. “It’s not a bad problem to have whatsoever.”

McNamee said her favorite part about working in Winthrop Garden is interacting with the neighborhood. She said it’s important to encourage community members to pay attention to where food comes from because transportation of food from outside sources produces excess carbon emissions.

“Getting food from more local sources and being able to grow your own food is a good first step,” McNamee said. “There’s a lot of room for people in the field, even if science isn’t one of your passions.”

Poveda said it’s important for customers to know how laborious food production is and where the nutrients they’re consuming are being sourced. She said the nutritional benefits of eating locally harvested produce are greater than those of foods from outside farms that require more preservatives and longer transport.

“Especially with how the climate is changing and how many problems that’s causing, we need to build people’s understanding of how conventional agriculture is feeding into the problem,” Poveda said. “Shifting to more regenerative practices so we can sequester more carbon and not emit more from agricultural work.”

For Urban Agriculture students, Winthrop Garden offers a unique, hands-on opportunity to learn sustainable agriculture while providing service for the surrounding community.