Dear farm friends,

Happy new year! 

2023 was a year of some big transitions at the farm, including joining Duke’s Office of Climate and Sustainability, on-boarding a new Assistant Director, and launching our Sloss Fellowship. 

We closed out the year with three days of reflection on what would best serve our mission now, almost fourteen years after the farm was first imagined and created by a group of undergraduate students, and left with renewed excitement for what 2024 will bring: access to a Duke Forest house (the farm team’s first on-site climate-controlled space - particularly welcome this time of year!) and increased student leadership in our production operation. Reflecting on the North Stars we developed at the end of last year and what we learned from our four-part participatory planning process, we’re looking forward to expanding both our community food security work and our educational programming.

These changes, however, require letting some things go. Thus, we announce – both wistfully and eagerly – that we are bringing our Community Supported Agriculture program to a close in order to donate 100% of our produce to support food security efforts at Duke and in Durham. We’re grateful to Toddi Steelman and Daniel Ennis for their support of this vision, and feel a renewed sense of purpose in the possibilities this opens up for our students and for our work with new and established community partners.     

CSA has long been a crucial tool for DCF, both teaching students and building community. As an approach to farming, CSA was at the heart of all of the farms our team came up on, and we will miss it dearly. But DCF isn’t disappearing! We’ll be growing the same amount of food, just distributing it differently. Keep reading to learn how to stay connected to the farm (and get your fix of local summer tomatoes) in our post-CSA world.

Best wishes for the new year!

The Duke Campus Farm

We are eternally grateful to all who have participated in our CSA program over the years. It is quite possible that the farm would literally not exist without your advocacy, and your support has been a big part of what made this shift to community food security possible. 

We look forward to announcing new opportunities for former customers to continue to connect with our team, our acre, and our veggies! This year we plan to host more seasonal plant sales, holiday markets, and pick-your-own strawberries and tomatoes. Check back on our website and social media for upcoming events. If you are looking for monetary ways to continue supporting our work, please consider making a donation here.

If you are curious to learn more about our decision to transition our production model, you can read more on our website.

We are in close community with many other farms in the Piedmont and are eager to uplift their programs. Below is a list of farms with either CSA or market models that we encourage you to explore this year.

Transplanting Traditions

South Wind Produce

Reds Quality Acre

One Soil Farm

Sugar Hill Farm

Humble Umbel

Nourishing Acres

Ten Mothers Farm

Elysian Fields

Students are back on campus and our academics are kicking into full gear. As we recommit to centering student leadership, we’re thrilled to be supporting Gurnoor Majhail (DCF field crew), along with fellow undergraduates Liv Ares and Natalie Lewis in their inaugural Duke Campus Farm house course, “Regenerating Food Systems.” These students were eager to take a deeper dive into broader food systems issues that came up in class and in the field and to share their experience at DCF with those who aren’t able to make it out the farm. They designed a syllabus that centers all the things they wished they (and others) knew more about, and will be teaching more than a dozen of their peers. We’re thrilled to be fueling their fire!

In other academic news, DCF Program Director Dr. Saskia Cornes is teaching “Food, Farming, and Feminism” this spring semester. This interdisciplinary lecture course asks how an intersectional feminist approach might change the public conversation around food systems from one that pushes for consumerist individualism (a “vote with your fork” mindset) to one that considers broader environmental, social and cultural impacts. Students in this course will also work with Lauren Henschel to create their own short films, which will be shared on our website at the end of the semester. 

Are you a faculty member who is curious to bring your class to the farm? Reach out to us and we can help find connections between food systems and your class. Whether your course is "Farmworkers in NC" or "African American Literature," we can work with you to access the farm as an embodied teaching tool.

Click here to view some of our previous course collaborations.

2023 was a big year! If you haven't already, be sure to flip through our 2023 Annual Report for more details on everything that our staff and students accomplished last year.

Click here or the image below to view our 2023 Annual Report.

Our work toward food systems change and a restorative relationship to land is possible because of our network of support. Your continued generosity is essential to sustaining the growth of our program. If you are interested in supporting our work, we welcome your financial gift here.

Stay in touch with the Duke Campus Farm by following us on socials.