Hill Farm Community Garden

The Hill Farm Community Garden in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was an 8500 square foot community garden.
History
The present-day Hill Farm Community Garden traces its origins to the original Hill Farm established in 1927 by the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station in order to carry out research horticultural crops as part of Louisiana State University's mission as a land-grant university. The original farm occupied 40 acres of the new Louisiana State University campus on a western ridge overlooking University Lake from which the Farm got its name. The Farm's first director was Dr. Julian C. Miller, a graduate of Cornell University, under whose direction the Hill Farm produced important varieties of sweet potatoes, potatoes, tomatoes, pears, peppers, and figs.
From research farm to teaching garden
During the 1960s a large part of the Farm's land was reallocated for the construction of sorority houses, as a result many of the fruit breeding programs had to be moved to other parts of the state. In the 1990s a new student recreation center and playing fields were created on the site of most of the remaining land, the remaining research programs were moved to the Burden Research Plantation. Today five acres of the original Hill Farm remain and used primarily as an agriculture teaching facility and community garden. Individual garden plots are nine by five feet (9' X 5') and may be rented by students, faculty, and the community at large. The price per lot has been deliberately kept low in order to support the Farm's mission to "provide access to gardening space, education, and resources necessary for the community to grow food in environmentally sustainable ways as a means of creating a food system where locally produced, affordable and nutritious food is available to all, and where the community can come together to share, play, and inspire one another." Although the gardeners are not required to plant certified organic seeds and plants, the Farm does require that gardeners use organic farming methods.
Controversy over intended land use
In 2003 the Louisiana State University hired the Smith Group JJR to produce a campus master plan which would "create a unified campus where quality mirrors the University's highest aspirations for academic, physical, and moral excellence."; in practice, these goals would be achieved by using the design principles established for the University in 1921 by Theodore Link. Although implementation of this plan would result in an overall increase in campus green space, what remains of the historic Hill Farm would be converted into a parking deck. Under the master plan, the Hill Farm would then be re-established on what is presently known as the Ostrich Parking lot, which is located near the historic southern gate of the University. When the College of Agriculture expressed concerns about growing plants on the compacted soil in the area, a representative of the Smith Group simply replied, "You're horticulturists, aren't you?" The on-campus Horticulture Club has since attempted to raise funds to support the Hill Farm and awareness of the difficulty of re-establishing healthy soil.
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