Institution Profile

The University of Michigan’s botanical gardens and arboretum were formally established in 1907. Since that time, what is now Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (MBGNA) has experienced more than a century of physical growth, expanded reach, and renewed purpose.

Program Creation

While the University of Michigan’s Campus Farm at Matthaei Botanical Gardens was formally established in 2012, groundwork for the program began in the early 2000s. Trailblazing students and faculty engaged in food systems work through their research and courses had a vision to integrate the sustainable food systems curriculum at the University of Michigan into the development of a campus farm. The idea was not to create a plethora of University of Michigan farmers, but rather to foster critical thinkers, engaged citizens, and future leaders with knowledge of the enormous impacts food production, consumption, and policy has on issues related to the environment, sustainability, public health, economic development, and social justice.

In 2004, part of this vision began to take form with the establishment of Cultivating Community, a program that created and managed small gardens around the University campus, including a pilot food garden at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. These efforts focused on creating formal and informal experiential learning opportunities for students, staff, and faculty in sustainable food systems. Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum became involved early on through the involvement of its then director, who acted as a mentor for these student groups. Several years later in 2009, the Graham Institute at the University of Michigan conducted an Integrated Assessment of Sustainability. The final report highlighted, among other items, a campus farm as a high level priority. This report gave validity to what many of those working with the farms felt–that these spaces were important and worth growing.

Students working on the Campus Farm

With this momentum behind them, several student leaders and involved faculty members applied for and received a Planet Blue Student Innovation Fund grant to help establish the Campus Farm at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. In the summer of 2012, the Farm was officially established, and by April 2013, a fully formed leadership team, advisory board, and organizational structure had been spelled out in the program’s business plan.

Since that time, Campus Farm has grown rapidly to become a hub of research, teaching, and community partnership for sustainable food systems. As part of this commitment to partnership and food sustainability, Campus Farm has co-created programming with area partners to achieve true community-driven outcomes, including an Urban Agriculture Internship Program and a collaboration with Jewish Family Services. Through each step, MBGNA has provided resources and active support to the Campus Farm, allowing the students to lead the direction of the program.

Urban Agriculture Internship Program

The Urban Agriculture Internship Program is an initiative that expands the impact of Campus Farm across the region.  Driven by community needs, the internship program works to increase food security in Southeast Michigan by building the capacity of partnering organizations and helping to create future leaders who are well versed in sustainable agriculture and urban farming, as well as advocates for food justice, access, and equity.

To achieve this, Campus Farm collaborates with five community organizations in Metro Detroit: D-Town Farm, Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, Cadillac Urban Gardens, Keep Growing Detroit, and Growing Hope.  Each partner organization engages in critical work to increase food security within its communities, and all of the partnerships allow for community-specific outcomes that  are driven by the needs and desires of the people in these communities.  Interns are trained by each partner organization on the needs that are outlined for each individual organization.

The collaboration between Campus Farm and its partnering organizations started in the same way the farm did–through the engagement of students and faculty connected by relevant coursework and engagement. The first organization to partner with Campus Farm was D-Town Farm. The relationship came out of a “Food Literacy for All” course at the University of Michigan that was co-taught by the D-Town Farm’s founder. The catalyst for the collaboration was a student manager at Campus Farm who had the idea of creating a merged farm model that allowed paid University interns to rotate between Campus Farm and D-Town Farm, assisting the organization with any needs it might have, from planting to grant preparation. Oakland Farm was included in the second year based on a similar co-teaching connection.

Just as these connections were becoming more defined and established, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The first year of the pandemic severely limited the ability of University interns to travel to the partnering farms. As a result, the program pivoted from being a cross-pollinated system of helping to a home-based farming collaboration. Plants were grown and tended at Campus Farm and distributed to the partners for their garden programs with food-insecure communities.

By 2021 Campus Farm was able to secure funding through an Urban Agriculture Resilience Program (UARP).  The UARP began in 2020 as a way for the United States Botanic Garden (USBG) and the American Public Gardens Association to support urban agriculture collaborations between public gardens and community partners facing challenges due to COVID-19.  The funding from the UARP allowed Campus Farm to increase its reach and collaborate with three other organizations–Cadillac Urban Gardens, Keep Growing Detroit, and Growing Hope.

Campus Farm’s involvement with each partner is unique to that organization’s community-driven needs as each farm is embedded in the community in its own unique way. Campus Farms enters each space looking only to offer help as directed by its partners. The work is truly driven by each community’s needs.

Program Impact

The most unique and rewarding aspects of the Urban Agriculture Internship Program are the multi-level impacts it creates. Community produce distribution programs, farm stands, and farm markets help to improve food access, while food sovereignty is promoted through efforts like transplant distributions, technical assistance, home garden installations, and youth educational programing.  Through this collaborative, community-driven approach, the program is able to make lasting changes in food equity, access, and justice.

Future Plans: Jewish Family Services Resettlement Garden Collaboration

Recently, in an effort to support newly displaced refugees from Afghanistan, Campus Farm began a new partnership with Ann Arbor based Jewish Family Services–the Resettlement Garden. While the program is just breaking ground this season, Tony Kolenic, Director of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, explains the importance of this community-impact collaboration, “MBGNA is uniquely positioned to honor our new community members’ personhood through connection to the land and the natural world–to help make this community their community.”

Through this new collaboration and with the support of Campus Farm staff, these new community members will have the opportunity to grow and harvest their own food, helping to provide nourishment and a sense of place and ownership, thus maintaining culturally important foodways in the context of nutrition, respect, and dignity.

Takeaways for Other Public Gardens

Part of what makes the work of the Campus Farm staff so impactful is that they acknowledge and leverage the differences in the groups that they work with. There is no “one size fits all” model, each organization that Campus Farm works with has its own resources and processes based on its community’s needs.  By recognizing and honoring these differences, meaningful impact driven work can be accomplished.