The Outback Adapts

Through the pandemic, the Outback helped feed Western students in need. Now, students are returning to lend a hand at the farm.

Story by Kendra Baker | Photos by Sadie Fick

June 12, 2021

Terri Kempton, farm manager at the Outback, talks to students as they weed the herb-garden. With more people on the farm, the Outback is hoping to expand areas that were unused last year due to the pandemic.

On a warm spring afternoon in May, the laughter, chatter and singing of students floats through the trees of the Outback Farm on Western Washington University’s (WWU) campus. As a gentle breeze blows across the two-hectare farm, the sweet smells of lilacs and wildflowers fill the air.

In the herb garden, students crouch around an apple tree, digging up buttercups and weeds. They’re not just enjoying the spring weather. They’re part of a class held at the Outback about experimental farm skills. The class offers a unique chance for students to experience farming and practice their skills in the field. It not only teaches about farming, but helps bridge the community and food production processes on the farm. The Outback has been working toward this mission throughout the pandemic.

“Something I want students to know is that, if you’re a Western student, you are a farmer,” said Terri Kempton, farm manager of the Outback. “This is a campus farm. Everyone has access to it . . . Everyone has the right to know about their food and where it comes from, and that process of growing can be really empowering and enlightening, even if it’s not the thing that students are here to study.”

The Outback Farm is not only dedicated to educating students but also serving those in need. During the pandemic, the Outback has been maximizing its food production to provide for Western students by contributing fresh produce to weekly campus food pantry pop-ups. This comes at a time when food access has been limited for some students and as food insecurity continues to rise.

An exit survey of WWU’s undergraduate students in 2019–2020 found more than half of students — 52.5% — said they cut the size of their meal or skipped meals because they didn’t have enough money for food.

This problem isn’t unique to Western researchers at Northwestern University estimate food insecurity in the United States has more than doubled because of the pandemic. The Outback has joined forces with campus dining services and other student life departments to create a community program dedicated to providing for student needs.

As campus begins to open up, the farm is shifting back to offering a community space, while still helping to feed students. This transition comes as the Outback prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2022.

The Outback Farm was started in 1972 by a group of students from WWU’s Fairhaven College. From the beginning, it was a place of community, advocacy and learning, according to its website. Today, the farm is home to rows of community and forest gardens, fruit trees and chickens.

Typically, the farm would be filled with students attending classes, visiting the chickens, volunteering at work parties or resting in hammocks, said Caitlin Paddock, engagement coordinator at the Outback. Work parties alone would have upwards of 20 students to help maintain the farm, she said.

Caitlin Paddock, Outback engagement coordinator, plants basil and cilantro at Western Washington University’s Outback Farm in May. Paddock said that while the farm continues to produce food for students, it also serves the need for community.

But when the pandemic surged last spring, what was once a vibrant community fell silent. When campus closed last year, Kempton and staff continued to maintain the farm with fewer helping hands.

“Becoming just our small core staff, we had to do a bit of triage on the farm,” Kempton said. “We had to make some really tough decisions in that regard.”

As the Outback made the difficult decision to cut back production areas, many food banks and campus food suppliers shut down as they tried to figure out safe ways to distribute food.

Outback managers saw a need and shifted their focus from creating a community space to feeding students. They contacted Trader Joe’s to connect with their food supply chain. Kempton and her team picked up box-fulls of food, including 300 loaves of bread, loaded it into an SUV and set up a “guerilla” pop-up for students. A few hours after they posted about the free food on social media, it was gone.

“We’ve definitely operated under the principle that everyone deserves food,” Kempton said. “You can imagine if you’re a student who was already relying on support and was food insecure, all of a sudden, your resources are no longer there. So, what do you do?”

Kempton recognized the demand for food pantries. In Bellingham, she said, the food bank feeds about one in five families. She started collaborating with campus dining services, the Student Needs Working Group and the Office of Student Life to design a safe and effective system for weekly food pop-ups for students. They proposed the plan to the university and, after a successful trial run, began Friday pop-ups at the Viking Union.

Those who attend the pop-ups are given nonperishables complemented by fresh produce from the Outback. Students show their ID cards, then walk through and pick from a choice of bags including omnivore, vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options.

Karen Deysher, the coordinator for Student Advocacy and Identity Resource Centers, worked with Kempton, the Outback staff and the campus planning group for the pop-ups.

“I’ve really appreciated their work and their willingness to always help find different ways of supporting students — especially when it comes to food insecurity work,” Deysher said. “No matter what the task is at hand, [they are] always willing to help in some way.”

The Outback learned and grew over the past year, Kempton said. She described how being involved in the food pantry pop-ups has brought her staff together and revealed the power of community. Kempton said this experience has given the Outback a chance to further their mission of taking care of WWU’s students.

“It did allow us to really focus on food production and food production as an expression of community care, food justice and resilience,” Kempton said. “Our mission [became] ‘How much food can we grow? And how can we distribute that to students who are facing food insecurity?’”

Beyond WWU, university farms across the nation are being used to feed students. The University of California, Santa Cruz has a 12-hectare farm on their campus that supplies food for the dining halls, food pantries and restaurants across campus. In Washington, Evergreen State College in Olympia has a certified organic farm about the same size as the Outback which distributes food to the dining hall, a student-run café and a market stand.

“When the pandemic started, what students needed was food, because things were closed down and they didn’t have support,” Paddock said. “But what students need now is community. What students need now is to learn and to grow and to understand what the world is like now. The food production never stops, because we’re a farm, but what we’re doing is so much more than that.”

As new plants begin to grow and bloom again at the Outback, so does the community. Whether students are attending classes, taking care of garden plots or simply wandering through the farm, they are active members of the Outback. This spring is only the beginning of the regrowth of this lively, flourishing community.

 
 

Kendra Baker is a senior communication studies student. She enjoys exploring the interconnected relationship between communities and their environment.