National Grant Leads to Development of COA’s Sustainable Farming Model

The Peggy Rockefeller Farm will soon become a working lab of sorts for students attending the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, and for the community as well.

COA just received a 200-thousand dollar grant from the Arthur Vining Davis foundation for the purposes of creating an experiential learning environment. Physics and Engineering lecturer at COA, Anna Demeo says the grant will allow students to actively participate in the design and development of sustainable solutions. 

Demeo says they’re already using a big solar array to produce energy for use on the farm and the extra energy produced helps fuel the college campus too.

"Each one of these different components, whether it's the energy used to heat or to light the farm, or to the way we plow the fields or feed the animals, each one of those has a trajectory, and we want it to be a sustainable trajectory," explains Demeo.

Demeo says the farm will serve as a resource for students and community members to learn about sustainable farming, and how to transition to a fossil-fuel-free food system.

The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, based in Jacksonville, Florida, are a national philanthropic organization established through the generosity of the late American industrialist and philanthropist Arthur Vining Davis, who was president of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and a Florida land developer.