Futurecast- The year is 2019,

Swarthmore College Approves the Construction of a High Hoop House on Crum Creek Ridge. Tues, September 10th, 2019

After much "sturm und drang", the Swarthmore College Sustainability Committee finally approved a proposal by Dharma Enterprises to allow construction of a high hoop house for off-season growing of medicinal herbs. Dharma Enterprises is an NGO that has been involved in the College's sustainability initiative since 2012 when it was instrumental in pushing through a plan to use goats for brush control on the campus. The college had been plagued by the invasion of Japanese knot weed, growing on the banks of Crum Creek.

Dr. Sarah Chenkin, a psychologist in private practice at the time, began experimenting with raising Nigerian Dwarf Daily Goats in her .45 acre Swarthmore suburban backyard in 2009. In 2010, she was able to get approval for starting a herd of Alpines on College land. The College awarded a small grant for fencing and for purchasing starters for the herd. Chenkin organized a group of students, town residents, and other volunteers to tend the goats. Many members of Dharma Enterprises were founding members of the Swarthmore Transition Town Initiative. Chenkin and her husband spent a year living with the goats in an authentic nomadic herding tent (obtained through mail order from Tibet) to get the herd established, their efforts augmented by stalwart members of Dharma Enterprises. Eventually the college allowed them to establish residence in a part of one of the 18 century historical residences that had been used for farming at the time the college was established.

Within 3 years Dharma Enterprises had a herd of 20 goats and a system utilizing portable fencing that allowed them to effectively rid most areas on campus of invasive plant species. The organization then requested a starter herd of sheep to keep Campus lawns trimmed and fertilized, and two Belgian draft horses along with haymaking equipment to provide a demonstration of how animals could be used to produce hay for the goats and sheep, all without petroleum products. Using these demonstration projects as a springboard, Dharma Enterprises began team teaching Permaculture at the College. Through their hands-on classes, many Swarthmore College students have now completed their college years with valuable agricultural skills as well as a first rate liberal education. Dharma Enterprises also runs a series of hand-on workshops on goat and sheep farming and animal powered agriculture which are attended by interested folks from all over the East Coast.

Over the years of their association with Dharma Enterprises, the college learned of Dr. Chenkin's passion for herbal medicine. During the great recession of 2008, Chenkin began bartering information on herbal remedies and psychotherapeutic services to residents of Swarthmore who had lost their insurance coverage. When petroleum scarcity led to a breakdown of the US transportation system and medicines could no longer be imported from Mexico (where most of them were being manufactured), many residents were already growing their own herbs, which were used in a number of emergency situations to treat college students and staff, as well a local residents.

The approval of the high hoop house will enable Dharma Enterprises to grow herbs through 10 months of the year instead of 5. The college has also made available laboratory equipment for them to use for building a still for distillation and for implementing other medicinal preparation techniques. A class on natural methods of medicinal preparation is now being offered through the College Chemistry department. Swarthmore College is pleased to be spearheading a task force to reorganize health services to emphasize health prevention, make health resources available at more local neighborhood sites, and support farmers who wish to grow medicinal herbs.


(This article was written in April, 2008)

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