Food Waste to Compost

An investigation into the local foodshed would not be complete without looking into opportunities for diverting food waste from ending up in the landfill. We began our journey at La Possada, the dinning facility for on-campus residents. We met with Barry Goldberg, Director of Dining Services. He gave us a 'behind-the-scenes' tour of the cooking facilities and gave us an overview of the food-waste collection initiative which has been in place since Chartwells took over Dining Services at UNM 5 years ago.

Next, we headed down to Soilutions which is the local company that collects UNM's food waste and transforms it into high quality compost. John Shaski kindly showed us around and helped demystify the composting process.

This platform is where food waste is initially received from UNM and other suppliers .

Students getting a good whiff of the finished, sweet smelling compost.

Visit to Skarsgard Farm

Throughout the course of our first module, we are looking at the relationship between food and the city. As we visit various sites throughout the city, we hope to uncover, document, analyze and plot some of the hidden or overlooked environmental, social, economic and spatial relationships that make up the urban foodshed.

Students help farm interns consolidate pepper plants for transplanting.

Thanks to the cheerful interns and to Wesley James for showing us around and for giving us  a first-hand experience of life on the city's largest organic farm.