On their hands and knees, 12 people dug small holes, pressing young, summer squash plants into the soil on a football field-sized plot of land.
Sweating in the hot sun, some of the dirty-kneed and often barefooted, planters squinted as they glanced up at Jeremy Moghtader, MSU Student Organic Farm manager and instructor, to learn how to properly plant the squash - ensuring the plants would grow strong until they could be harvested.
"See how that part is sticking up? The sun is going to hit that part," said Moghtader, explaining how the topsoil surrounding the roots of the squash plants must be fully covered to protect the roots from the sun.
As manager of the MSU SOF, 3291 College Road in Holt, Moghtader instructs the students and volunteers who work on the farm.
The organic farm had its annual summer planting party Saturday, where volunteers, student interns and members of the farm's Community Supported Agriculture group worked from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., planting tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, squash and many other plants across the farm's 10 acres.
The SOF produces about 60 different organic vegetables, Moghtader said.
"That diversity makes sure that, no matter what, there's going to be a lot of stuff," he said. "It's the opposite of having all your eggs in one basket."
Certified organic vegetables come from farms inspected by a U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved third party inspector to ensure the farm is producing to national organic standards.
"Generally speaking, it means you can't apply synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, you have to maintain good soil health, use crop rotation and treat your animals humanely," Moghtader said.
The SOF fits into a bigger picture of bringing locally grown, organic food to the community.
"We're trying to get people reconnected with what it means to eat seasonally and be committed to eating locally," said Corie Pierce, co-manager and instructor at the SOF.
"What I hope is by building peoples' commitment to (local food) through their vegetables, it also gets them thinking about their dairy, their meat and their fruit," she said.
To do this, the organic farm uses Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, a form of marketing used by farms like the SOF, to get their vegetables into the community.
CSA members buy a share of the vegetables grown at the farm with an up-front fee of $460 per 16-week session, or $28.75 a week. In return, members receive a weekly box of fresh, locally grown organic vegetables they can pick up from the farm. The farm has three 16-week sessions during the year, with breaks that match up with MSU's scheduled breaks.
Marketing through CSA has been good for the farm, Moghtader said.
"We don't have to worry about trying to sell something once we've grown it," he said. "I know we're growing it for them. They paid us. We grow their food, and we give it to them."
To Moghtader, Pierce and other like-minded consumers, buying organic produce locally is a better option than buying mass-produced vegetables shipped from farms as far as thousands of miles away from large grocery stores.
"Vegetables produced in mass quantities - maybe in California, maybe even in Chile or in China - and then put on a boat, plane, truck, whatever, and brought here doesn't seem OK," Pierce said. "I don't know who grew it, and I don't know what they did to it, so really getting people to reconnect (locally) is a huge mission for me."
Vegetables from places like the SOF are simply better than the competition, Pierce said.
"Bottom line, things just taste a lot better when they're in season, and they're as fresh as you can possibly get them," she said.
SOF volunteer Maggie Wright was attracted to the newly formed Organic Farming Certificate Program because of her work on the farm.
"I really wanted to be a part of (the farm) and spend as much time there as possible," she said. "I am a first-generation farmer, and I wanted a way to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible, with guidance."
