NURF is part of a larger, national campaign known as the Real Food Challenge (RFC). The Real Food Challenge aims to create a movement among youth and universities to make our food system fair, healthy, sustainable, and humane. Much of the work is done by student leaders (that's us!) and working groups around the country. The primary campaign goal is to shift $1 billion of university food budgets towards Real Food sources by 2020 (this is 20% of the current $5 billion spent on food by universities annually). 

 

Six core principles of RFC:

• Real Food Principle — Real Food encompasses concern for producers, consumers, communities, and the Earth. Relevant issues from human rights and environmental sustainability can converge around this issue.

• Movement Principle — Real Food Challenge is part of a larger food movement working towards a fair, sustainable world. Social movements are key to creating lasting social change.

• Youth Principle — Young people can help drive structural and social change. Students have unique resources to effect institutional change, influence culture, think creatively, and obtain positions as decision-makers in our society.

• Partnership Principle — It is crucial for students to collaborate with administration, dining services, producers and other community allies to reach our goals.

• Multi-Cultural Principle — Many problems within the food system are the result of historical and current oppression through personal, interpersonal, structural and cultural interactions. Real Food Challenge hopes to create a movement that embraces differences between cultures.

• The Participatory Principle — We seek to balance a drive for results with attention to how we get them. Believing the ends reflect the means, we seek a means that maximizes participatory planning, decision-making, and leadership structures. As a unique place for the different grassroots networks to meet and strategize together, central to RFC is creating an intentional space where all voices are heard and respected.

 

RFC Success Stories

 

So far, 32 colleges and universities, including NU, have signed the Campus Commitment. Some, including Oberlin College (OH), UC Santa Cruz, and Bard College, have signed commitments to source well over 20% of their food from Real sources by 2020. Real Food Campus Commitment success at these colleges and universities resulted from collaboration between various student organizations.

 

At Oberlin College, the RFC coalition included organizations such as Slow Food Oberlin, Oberlin Animal Rights, the Environmental Concerns Committee, and the Responsible Investing Organization. The strength and breadth of the RFC’s Oberlin coalition demonstrated widespread support for the values espoused by the Campus Commitment. 

 

At Bard College, students and campus dining services have worked together since 2008 to increase sustainability in on-campus dining. In 2012, a Kickstarter campaign led to the creation of the Bard College Farm, which produced over 15,000 pounds of food for campus consumption in 2013. Bard’s president signed the Campus Commitment in 2013, after which Bard EATS was formed to coordinate the between the Farm, the Real Food Challenge, and other sustainability organizations. Bard, like Oberlin, succeeded due to widespread student support for local and sustainable food.