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Husker Produce Farm grows food, opportunity and community

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Husker Produce Farm grows food, opportunity and community

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Husker Produce Farm harvests food, opportunity, community connections

Husker Produce Farm harvests food, opportunity, community connections

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University of Nebraska Lincoln

The first harvest at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Husker Produce Farm is yielding more than tomatoes, potatoes and watermelon. It's feeding the community, giving students hands-on agricultural experience and putting down roots to grow stronger local food systems.

A $90,000 grant is helping transform an existing crop research site on the northern edge of East Campus into a working farm focused on food production, student learning and community outreach. The project was one of seven initiatives selected through a competitive review process funded by the university’s $1 million prize for winning the 2024 Abbott and Big Ten We Give Blood competition.

For Sam Wortman, a professor in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture and the project’s principal investigator, the investment created an opportunity to build on specialty crop research conducted on the three-acre site since 2017.

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“We want this farm to bring together all three parts of the university’s mission — research, teaching and outreach,” Wortman said. “Reliable, commercial-scale production gives students authentic, hands-on learning experiences that are difficult to replicate in a classroom, while allowing us to grow fresh food for our community. The goal is to connect what we do in research and education with real-world needs beyond the university.”

During its first commercial growing season, the farm harvested about 15,000 pounds of produce across 15 crops, including potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, watermelon and fresh herbs. Some went to campus dining services, including watermelon served at Cather Dining Center. Other produce went to the Food Bank of Lincoln and Food Fort, a Lincoln nonprofit that distributes food through community programs.

For Food Fort, the partnership has increased both the quantity and variety of fresh produce available to the families it serves.

“Our partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has been phenomenal for Food Fort,” said Landon Bartel, the nonprofit’s director of development. “It has dramatically increased the amount and variety of fresh produce we can get into the community, allowing us to provide more nutritious food for families and incorporate that produce into the meals we prepare.”

“Beyond the food itself, having a university like UNL recognize our work and choose to support us is incredibly meaningful to our staff and the families we serve.”

Building on the partnership’s first-season success, the organizations are exploring ways to expand their collaboration next year, potentially through an intern who would work at the farm and help coordinate produce distribution and community programming.

The farm’s harvest also reached campus diners. Collin Eaton, manager of the Husker Produce Farm, said dining staff were especially enthusiastic about the freshness of the produce. Lettuce, fresh herbs and watermelon were among the products supplied to University Dining Services.

“One of the most rewarding parts is seeing the quality of the produce and knowing it's going directly to people who can use it,” Eaton said. “The dining staff have been excited about how fresh everything is. Seeing what we grow reach campus dining halls and community partners makes the work worthwhile.”

Beyond supplying food, the farm gives students opportunities to apply agricultural concepts in the field. Five students worked on the operation this year, including two undergraduate interns and three graduate students.

Evan Allberry, an undergraduate studying specialty crop production and horticulture, was one of the farm's inaugural interns.

“We started with basically empty fields and grew about 15 different crops,” Allberry said. “Seeing how productive the farm could be and how much we could grow in such a small space was pretty impressive.”

Student research projects on site this season have compared heirloom and hybrid vegetables, tested insect management strategies and grown less common crops, including African eggplant. In the class Cover Crops and Agroecosystems, cotaught by Wortman, students selected cover crop species, calibrated planting equipment and seeded test plots after broccoli was harvested. They will return to evaluate which strategies perform best under actual field conditions.

The first harvest is only a beginning. The project's long-term goals are to grow at least 30,000 pounds of fresh produce annually for local food banks and provide hands-on gardening and production education to at least 300 students each year.

Reaching those targets will require infrastructure and a sustainable operating model. Wortman said the team hopes to establish a wash-and-pack station to prepare produce for distribution and strengthen food safety practices, particularly for leafy greens. Revenue from sales to campus dining services could eventually help support at least two student interns each summer.

The farm also could help create new markets for Nebraska growers. Large dining operations often rely on bulk purchasing, making it difficult to source produce from multiple local suppliers. By working through those challenges with its own harvest, the university hopes to develop a model that could make it easier for Nebraska farmers to supply institutional dining operations.

For Wortman, that broader potential is central to the project — using the university's research and resources to create opportunities that extend beyond campus.

"The real opportunity here is to show what happens when research, education and community needs come together," Wortman said. "The investment from Abbott gave us a chance to build something that serves all three — growing food, teaching students and building community partnerships. If we can use what we learn here to better connect Nebraska growers with the people who need their food, the impact can reach far beyond these three acres."

Other members of the Husker Produce Farm advisory team, all part of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources' Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, are Martha Mamo, department head and John E. Weaver Professor; Andrea Basche, associate professor; Christian Stephenson, assistant professor of practice; Benjamin Jewell, associate extension educator; and Christine Barta, lecturer.

Learn more about the Husker Produce Farm.

This content is sourced from University of Nebraska Lincoln . It reflects the author's views and has not been edited by our newsroom. It may have been generated using AI assistance.

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