ENS 392.01

Professor Amy McFarland

This class was created to give students the opportunity to learn about sustainable agriculture. However, sustainable agriculture has few, if any, absolute truths. It is completely place-based and context specific. We started the semester by discussing the foundation of sustainable agriculture – the soil. We also learned about pests and nutrients and how to manage them in sustainable systems.  Finally, we learned about the true foundations of sustainable agriculture – value systems. And how we must experience a cultural shift in values in order to truly achieve sustainability. 

Students were tasked with researching and creating a website about some idea related to sustainable agriculture that could build the systemic capacity of the Sustainable Agriculture Project (SAP), GVSU's student-led farm. Additionally, their projects explored models at other farms and university farms, in particular. Their projects develop value according to the “triple bottom line” model of sustainability and made recommendations for a potential plan for implementation at the GVSU SAP.