Hi! My name is Anna Smithwick and I am a 2024 for-credit intern here at the Student Farm! I am currently a senior majoring in Nutritional Sciences. From a young age I have been immersed in gardening and the outdoors, through my mom, and later discovered a passion for food and nutrition myself.
In the summer of 2023, I spent a month in Kenya where I was able to spend time seeing hands-on the farming and food systems in rural areas throughout the town of Narok. Seeing the different landscapes and setups of the farms we visited was beyond fascinating. One farm was completely woman-run, and they had a thriving garden in which the lady of the house had members of her community come and run the farm with her, and I had never seen so many plants! Another farm had over 20 acres of land, and as we walked through the farm it was so special being able to hear about their experiences of running the farm just as a family, with no outside help. A cool thing I noticed was how they use a lot of corn husks as a source of providing organic matter and nutrients to the soil.
Farming in areas such as these is harder as running water is nowhere near as accessible, and rain does not come often, and so these people would carry bucket by bucket the water from the river for their produce in order to maintain a thriving farm. Through this experience a passion for understanding the agricultural side of food became important to me, which is how I found myself at the Student Farm!
Growing up, as well, I always found myself outdoors. Whether that was swimming in our creek, running around my backyard with my friends, hiking with my family, or exploring my mom’s garden, I thrived in the outdoors. Finding a combination of both the outdoors and food was something I always hoped to find, and so far at the Student Farm, I have fallen in love with the tasks I get to do every day. Whether it is simply harvesting pounds of kale, cultivating beds for planting, or trellising tomatoes, I love every part of it!
Sustainable agriculture is so important nowadays, and something I hope to incorporate into whatever my future brings me. I am passionate about eating foods that are organic, whole, and simply good for you and not ones that are full of all of the harmful additives. Eating foods like this is beyond important for your health, and sometimes people look past that – even something as simple as purchasing farmer’s market strawberries versus the packaged strawberries at your local grocery store is extremely helpful for your health.
Through my time at the farm I am excited to explore a new area of food to me and apply this to my lifelong goals of working in food sustainability and security. I have always found myself interested in holistic nutrition, as in eating whole foods and simply eating the rainbow, and I believe that working on the farm will help me fully understand a lot more about how these processes are done and how important it is to choose foods that come straight from your local farmers.
