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Research
Nursing sow with piglets

Student research leads to Gloucester Old Spots pig breeding program

As many of you may know,  one of our recent graduates created a Gloucester Old Spots pig breeding program here at Hampshire College.  For her Division III project, April Nugent conducted research on the nutritional and environmental impacts of raising breeding swine on pasture vs. woodlots. We thought you might be interested learning the results of her research, which can be found here: https://drive.google.com/a/ham
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Chef showing plated food to 3 students

What do you know about the faces behind our food?

Dear Hampshire Community, How well do you know the faces behind your food – meaning the staff involved in the Hampshire College food system? Have you ever chatted with Jamil? Toured the farm with Nancy? Bought bulk from Mixed Nuts? Please take a brief survey and let us know! https://hampshire.co1.qualtrics.com/…/fo…/SV_br9Q4IXTlmuLurX Thanks!  
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Local food systems by the numbers

For those of you who are interested in local food systems, FINE (Farm to Institution New England) has written an interesting six-part blog series on food metrics, called “Measuring Up”. The entire series can be accessed here. Some highlights include: The struggle around defining “local”: While some institutions create their own definitions of local, others use third-party tools or federal/stat
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In Memoriam: Ray Coppinger, founding faculty member of Hampshire College and the Farm

The Hampshire College Farm is saddened by the passing of Ray Coppinger, internationally-renowned animal behaviorist and founding faculty member of both Hampshire College and the Hampshire College Farm. As many of you may know, the Hampshire College Farm originated in the late 70s as a research facility centered around a variety of aspects of raising sheep. One prominent part of the research involved animal behavior &
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Sow in straw hat by waterer

Researching and Raising Gloucestershire Old Spots

As promised in the previous post, we wanted to provide you with more details on the Gloucestershire Old Spot breeding program, a student-run project by April Nugent, 15F, funded by the Coppinger Research Grant. This study involves breeding heritage pigs in two separate environments (pasture and woodlot) and then comparing the pigs raised on pasture with the pigs raised on woodlot, with the goal of providing baseline
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The wildflower field is abuzz with activity

Passers-by the wildflower field at Hampshire’s main entrance may have noticed some “Bee” signs, along with some green flagging tape, in the middle of our beautifully-flowering field. These indicators surround a new, short-term home for a hive of honey bees who are being used to conduct research on a gut pathogen in bumblebees. Lynn Adler, a biologist at UMass Amherst, was on campus recently and noti
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