College students learn about farming this summer

As farmers struggle with a squeeze in prices and costs and such issues as climate-change legislation and the National Animal Identification System, it often seems like food is produced in a world not seen by the general public. Going against the grain are students who see food and food policy as the "political movement of their time" and are using their summers to learn the ways of agriculture.

From Barnard College in New York to Kenyon College in Ohio, farms will be getting a helping hand or two from liberal-arts students seeking something different, Kim Severson reports for The New York Times.

Katherine L. Adam, who runs the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, financed by the Department of Agriculture, said 1,400 farms sought interns this year, almost three times the number in 2007. Jamie Katz, an English major at Kenyon, will plant peach trees in Virginia this summer and sees his contribution as simply doing his part. "Everyone eats, and everyone has a vested interest in this." (Read more)