CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — James West stands in the dark on a cold January morning. He has an old heater going as he smokes a cigarette. It is 7 a.m., and it’s time to feed the pigs that will one day feed thousands of students.
West, who owns a farm just outside of Kinston, N.C., is one of many pig farmers who provide pork for Carolina Dining Services.
“I am the guy. I am the breeder, I am the midwife, I am the nurse, part-vet, part-farmer, part-everything. I do it all,” he said.
All of his pigs are pasture-raised, animal-welfare approved and fed a diet free of genetically modified organisms.
“The way I raise hogs is almost as you would raise children,” he said. “Just because we eat them doesn’t mean we don’t treat them well.”
West is a part of the ongoing movement toward more local, sustainable food, which is a recent priority for CDS as it tries to meet the standards of the Real Food Challenge.
The challenge aims to get universities to serve less food from industrial farms. It was brought to UNC by Fair, Local, Organic Food, a UNC student organization asking that CDS be more sustainable in its food purchases.
But for CDS, more sustainable also means more expensive.
Mike Freeman, director of auxiliary services at CDS, said despite FLO’s campaigns, most students do not want to pay more for their meals.
“We ask students, ‘Do you want local-sustainable,’ and they say, ‘Yes,’ and then we say, ‘Do you want to pay more,’ and they go, ‘No,’” he said.
Freeman said the challenge is FLO’s consistently changing standards of what does and does not count as local, sustainable sources.
“(FLO) gave us this (report), and we did it and we noticed some things, and things counted, but all of a sudden, it flipped and next year it didn’t count,” he said.
But FLO representatives say that kind of mentality is necessary.
“Any kind of third-party system that is going to check what is right or wrong or what is ethical needs to be dynamic,” said Claire Hannapel, director of communications for FLO.
Freeman said he did not want to commit to something that is constantly changing.
Cindy Shea, director of UNC’s Sustainability Office, said because students are not required to purchase a meal plan, prices must be competitive.