Sustainable Student Farm celebrates its first certificate program graduate
As a recent communications graduate, Lia Basden missed getting her hands dirty and making things grow. “My parents have a big garden and chickens,” she said. “I missed touching dirt.” That’s why she applied to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Small Farm Certificate Program. Last semester, after eight months of hard work, she’s the program’s inaugural graduate.
The program is based at the Sustainable Student Farm (SSF) and led by farm manager Matthew Turino. Founded as a student initiative in 2009, SSF is now part of the crop sciences department, within the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences. As opposed to the farm’s existing internship program, which gives current students work experience to complement their studies, the Small Farm Certificate is aimed at anyone who wants to learn how a small, sustainable farm works.
“This program is meant to be much more focused than a four-year bachelor’s degree, but goes deeper than an internship. If students want to run their own farm, they should be able to by the end of the program,” said Turino.
Learning remotely and in the field
The program is delivered in three parts: an 8-week online course in the spring, three months working at SSF during the summer, and an additional three months working at a farm of the student’s choice in the fall. The hybrid nature of the course makes participation easier while integrating classroom insights with hands-on, experiential learning.
“I learned so much in the spring, so I was super excited to be on the farm,” said Basden. “It was great to come back to some of those topics, so I could make more sense of them and make more connections.”
The certificate program complements the existing internship. Basden worked with the interns in the morning and completed her certificate program projects in the afternoon. “I appreciated having that extra background from the spring. When the interns joined us in the summer, I knew what was going on, and could help them when we worked together,” Basden said.
As the only student, Basden worked closely with farm manager Turino and Jack McCoy, lecturer in crop sciences and director of ACES’ Sustainability in Food and Environmental Systems program. “Having just one student was a nice way to ease into it, develop materials, and learn what worked,” Turino said.
Turino and McCoy guided Basden as she planned, planted, and harvested her own plot of vegetables. They also helped with her final project: planning her very own small, sustainable farming operation.
“My project included everything I would do if I had my own farm, start to finish — what it would be called, the logo, how much space I would have, everything down to the number of seeds I would buy. It was a great way to understand what the real thing is like,” Basden said.
Continuing to grow
Turino and McCoy are excited to expand the program beyond its inaugural class size of one. The next crop of certificate-seekers is set to begin their educational journey in the coming months.
As for Basden, she’s excited to continue promoting sustainable agriculture. “I hope to continue working in sustainable agriculture. In my career, I’m constantly using the transferable skills I learned at SSF,” she said.