Students at the University of Oregon continuously look for new opportunities to go “green” and live sustainably. However, not all opportunities have to be new. Ann Bettman, adjunct assistant professor of landscape architecture, likes to remind community members of the patch of organic heaven on campus, the 33-year-old Urban Farm. 

The Urban Farm thrives across from campus near the Millrace studios on Franklin Boulevard. During spring, summer and fall terms, college students receive credit for growing, harvesting, canning and cooking the broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, and other fruits and vegetables yielded by the one by one-half acre garden.

Since the 1970’s the farm has grown under the supervision of Bettman, who saved the farm from being plowed under after the departure of its founder, Richard Britz. Bettman, who stepped down as director in fall of 2007, said, “I made the farm work and become institutionalized. I’m very happy with 25 years of making the farm a success.”

Bettman, who earned her master’s degree at UO in 1979, even wrote a book chronicling her experiences. In 2002 she recounted her memories of the farm in The Urban Farm. Much of the book explains how she restructured the Urban Farm class along with the layout of the acreage.

 Bettman is perhaps most proud of reconstructing the hierarchy between staff and students. During the 1980’s Bettman attempted a system in which she delegated lessons to team leaders, mentors who usually have time and expertise on certain aspects of the process. However, Bettman lost the direct relationships she had shared with students. By the 1990’s she created a lesson plan that is used today; it relies on direct interaction between the director, team leaders, and students.

While the layout of the farm now resembles that of the 1970’s, it too has undergone drastic changes. Not only did she triple the land base with the adoption of “the back 40” but she made the farm wheelchair accessible. During the 1980’s Bettman encouraged “earth art.” In her book, she wrote, “The students lovingly patted the soil into…chevrons, circles, waves, and cul-de sacs. My favorite was done by a group of women who shaped their beds into stylized but definitely recognizable female genitalia.”

 For efficiency, the garden returned to rectangular beds. However, the farm retains what was determined in the 1980’s to be the energy center. It now exists as the Red Pole Circle, a circle in the center marked by red poles, representing the solar and lunar, female and male, Heart of the Farm.

 For some students, the farm itself is the heart of their university experience. Many must wait until their senior year to get into the Urban Farm class, and during spring and fall terms the class swells to eighty students. Summer, despite the abundance of harvest, has fewer students because of the lack of overall enrollment during that term.

Classes differ each term, although Bettman beams when describing each term. Spring focuses on planting. “Anyone who gardens knows the joy of planting,” Bettman said. Bettman describes summer as the longest and most food-bearing term, while fall offers the most intellectual stimulation. Of course, Bettman adds, “Ideally, a person should take all three terms.”

Bettman, while still involved, is excited to pass on the farm to new hands and a new direction of growth. “Sustainable agriculture is hot. I don’t have to keep it alive anymore,” Bettman said. Plus, she has complete faith in former team leader and current interim director Harper Keeler.

Still, Bettman feels more attention should be paid to the farm. “There’s no activity that humans do that influences the health of our planet more than agriculture,” said Bettman. She hopes to see the university give more funding to the farm in the future as well as more consideration to making campus food options locally based.

» Learn more about the Urban Farm

» Learn more about the UO Department of Landscape Architecture