Volume 124 Issue 39
kansan.com
Monday, October 17, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2011
AGRICULTURE
PAGE 3
Locally grown food has global impact
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
U. S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Kathleen Merrigan talks to the owners of The Merc, a local farmers market. Merrigan spoke about job creation and support for local farmers.
CLAIRE MCINERNY
cmcinerny@kansan.com
Trade agreements will help Kansas farmers export goods
The classroom at the back of the Merc looks a little different than Kathleen Merrigan's typical meeting room. With a table filled with organic spinach and hand-grown cherry tomatoes, this room showcases what the Merc is all about: local produce. Merrigan, the deputy secretary of agriculture of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, also focuses on local produce in her job.
Merrigan said the locally-grown food trend is increasing at a rate people in the food industry have never seen. And as of Tuesday, locally grown food in Kansas will not only benefit the community it was grown in, but people all over the world because of new free trade agreements.
The new free trade agreements lower tariffs on goods the U.S. ships to these countries, so Congress hopes sending more agriculture goods overseas will open more jobs for farmers.
Merrigan spent Wednesday afternoon eating lunch and discussing local farming with a few board members for the Merc. She took this break from Washington to have a dialogue with local food producers to figure out how to stimulate the economy, literally from the ground up.
Columbia, Panama and South Korea free trade agreements," Merrigan said. "This is going to open up doors for beef, dairy and feed grains and we're really excited for your state."
"I can't find a big enough word for how important yesterday was with the
One issue both the Merc and Department of Agriculture work to improve is the food children receive in school lunches. The Merc's Community Mercantile Education Foundation (CMEF) is in charge of the school farms at Lawrence elementary and middle schools.
Nancy O'Connor, executive director of CMEF, thinks the school gardens in Lawrence are changing the way children eat.
"When I see what kids see on the landscape, they see golden arches," O'Connor said. "Even if children aren't consciously thinking about it, every day when they come out of their schools they walk past a garden and it's changing their view of food," O'Connor said.
Merrigan participated in a study at Tufts University that supports this
claim. The study found that school children who are involved in garden-based learning do better on standardized tests, are environmentally aware and are open to trying healthier foods.
Merrigan hopes a new program will also improve the quality of food for children. It was introduced in Michigan and Florida earlier this year and allows schools to spend USDA commodity dollars on local food for school lunches.
Although Merrigan said Lawrence is doing a great job of supporting and cultivating local produce, she said it is up to consumers to keep this trend alive. Unlike the Merc, some grocery stores claim their produce to be local when it is not, so only purchasing true local food will help this industry.
"It itre consumers to look at labels and ask questions," Merrigan said. "There's a renaissance of interest in food and American agriculture, so it gives us a real moment of education and opportunity. So this is a great time for consumers to ask those questions and learn."
Edited by Mike Lavieri
CAMPUS
Plagiarism persists at all levels
SARA SNEATH
ssneath@kansan.com
Technological advances don't only add texting acronyms and abbreviations to students' vocabulary. Advances have made students familiar with the computer operating commands for copy and paste as well.
With the availability of online sources, plagiarism can be a tempting option to students with pressing deadlines.
Earlier this week, two University professors were censured for their role in allowing plagiarized work to be published. Plagiarism at Kansas extends beyond these two professors. The University investigates 90 cases of academic misconduct per year, said Kim McNeley,
ILLUSTRATION BY SUMMER BRADSHAW
assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. McNeley
said the majority of these cases are plagiarism.
"Students used to have a limited number of resources and have read every a faculty member resource available," would
n or m SEE PLAGIARISM PAGE 4
mally
700 New Hampshire (old Borders Building) www.halloweenexpress.com/kansascity
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
Jason Phoenix explains different gestures for responses during the demonstrations held by protestors participating in Occupy Lawrence. The local movement has expressed solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. The group is working toward promoting change in local government ordinances.
Kansas, making his home first in Stauffer-Flint Hall — where he sat, forgotten, until 2009 — and then in the University Archives.
The "Russian Jayhawk," as the small carving has come to be known, was a gift of gratitude from an unknown Russian prisoner of war to Conrad Hoffman, a Kansas alumnus working with the YMCA in Germany during World War I.
On Wednesday evening, he made another journey, this time to the offices of the department of Slavic languages and literatures in Wescoe Hall, where he'll live for one year in a glass display case.
It's a symbol of the long-standing connection between the University and its students doing good in Russian and Eastern Europe, said Marc Greenberg, chairman of the Slavic department.
"I want the carving to help draw attention to the things
According to the article, the YMCA worked in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, providing education and coordinating social and athletic activities for the prisoners. The YMCA also helped prisoners develop trades and hobbies by giving them tools and arranging exhibitions and sales of their artwork.
The YMCA post was "an important non-governmental service performing a moral and social function during the First World War," Greenberg wrote in his article "Hoffman his Hawk."
Hoffman went to Germany in 1915, and it was common for him to receive presents, said the article, from the thankful prisoners who he worked with.
In 1913, Conrad Hoffman became the secretary of the YMCA at the University, leaving his position as a professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin.
CLASSIFIEDS 7B CRYPTOQUIPS 4A SPORTS 18
CRDSSWORD 4A OPINION 5A SUDOKU 4A
SEE JAYHAWK PAGE 3
According to a pencil inscription on his side, the Russian Jayhawk was given to Hoffman in 1917. He was probably carved by either
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
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