Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Honors student helps others learn about local

Back to Leopold Letter Summer 2012

Iowa State University honors student Ashlee Hespen got a crash course on local foods when she came to the Leopold Center this year. Craig Chase, who leads the Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative, wanted a new resource that would reflect the many activities and programs at ISU related to a growing interest in Iowa-grown food.

Do ISU dining halls serve local food? What classes help students address this new market? What assistance is available for young people who want to start a direct-market farm?

So Hespen, a double major in public service and administration in agriculture and journalism and mass communications, set out to learn everything she could about local food at ISU. As part of her final project in the University Honors Program, she produced a new guide, Learning About Local at ISU.

Learning About Local at ISU lists 26 programs and 35 graduate and undergraduate classes that have a local foods component or could be applied to local food production and marketing. The directory provides current contact information as well as descriptions of each program’s objective, type of assistance offered, and examples. The publication is available on the Leopold Center website here

Chase said the directory is a good start, and that he hopes to convert this guide and an earlier guide to state-wide resources into an online database in the future.

Hespen received her degree in May 2012. She grew up in the Grundy County town of Conrad, where she learned leadership and communication skills in 4-H. “It gave me a respect for the ag industry and how important it is to share stories of how we’re affected by agriculture in our lives every day,” she said.
 

Back to Leopold Letter Summer 2012