<b>By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN<br>
Michigan Correspondent</b></p><p>

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University feeds the minds of students and helps fulfill the nutritional needs of local residents at the same time.<br>
For 25 years, MSU has donated excess fresh fruits and vegetables from several of its farms to local food banks. The relationship between them and the school sprouted when an MSU professor, Spencer Potter, brought the two together. Each year since 1983, the farms owned by the university have contributed to a healthy food supply for needy residents in the Lansing area and other communities.<br>
In 2007, the MSU farms contributed more than 220,000 pounds of fresh food to the Greater Lansing Food Bank. Last year, from July through November, donated crops were harvested from the Student Organic Farm and the crop and soil sciences, horticulture and plant pathology farms that are part of the East Lansing Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) field station – one of 15 MAES field experiment stations throughout Michigan.<br>
The on-campus research farms provide land and facilities for research conducted by MSU faculty members in forestry, entomology, plant pathology, animal science, crop and soil sciences, veterinary medicine and horticulture.<br>
MSU farms in other communities, including the Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners and the Montcalm Research Farm in Lakeview, also have donated crops to food banks in their communities.<br>
“We see this as a wonderful outgrowth of the research programs that take place at campus farms,” said Douglas Buhler, associate director of the MAES and associate dean for research for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “Providing quality food to needy members of our community is really in the spirit of an institution like MSU.”<br>
Anne Rauscher, director of the Greater Lansing Food Bank garden project, said the support from MSU has helped the organization serve the needs of its community for decades.<br>
“Often, fresh fruits and vegetables are most lacking in diets of low-income individuals,” Rauscher said. “The partnership between MSU and the gleaners is a wonderful way to ensure that fresh local foods get into hands of people that need them.”<br>
The Greater Lansing Food Bank provides volunteers through its Garden Project Gleaning Program to harvest surplus produce from the on-campus farms and distributes it to low-income individuals and agencies that serve those in need.<br>
The food is distributed to pantries, human service organizations and residents of low-income housing. The thorough field harvest completed by the volunteers benefits the farms, but the main priority is benefiting undernourished people.<br>
Last year, the collection of fruit and vegetables took more than 1,500 volunteer hours from more than 70 individuals from July through November. Rauscher said she rallies gleaners from a list of about 100 volunteers when she receives a call reporting crops ready to be picked.<br>
On a busy day, about 30 people volunteer. Slower days have between five and 10 individuals responsible for the picking, boxing, sorting and weighing process.<br>
“This is an integral part of our operation. It’s one of the big programs that we offer,” Rauscher said. “The produce is delivered the same day. It’s amazing how fresh it is.”<br>
Produce harvested varies from year to year, depending on what is planted in the commercial plots. Collections have yielded a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables including sweet corn, lettuce, cherries, tree fruits, eggplant, asparagus, pears, plums, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, grapes, cabbage and others.<br>
The partnership between MSU and the garden project boasts a collection record of nearly 2 million pounds of fresh produce in 25 years, including more than 150,000 pounds in each year since 1991. Ray Hammerschmidt, chairman of the MSU Department of Plant Pathology, said the partnership puts to use commodities that otherwise would have been wasted.<br>
“Much of our research is conducted and paid for by industry, so we can’t really sell the crops – that would compete with the people we’re trying to help,” Hammerschmidt said. “The gleaning project provides good quality produce to people who have a real need for the nutrients available in fresh produce. The crops go to a much better use than being composted.”