Where students and crops grow: Purdue Student Farm wins 2025 TEAM Award

The Purdue Student Farm (PSF), a small-scale sustainable farm managed by the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture (HLA), has been awarded the Purdue Agriculture TEAM Award. Established in 1995, the TEAM Award recognizes outstanding interdisciplinary team achievements of faculty and staff that support Purdue Agriculture’s mission in teaching, research or extension. In addition to this recognition, award recipients will recieve $10,000 to further strengthen and support their program initiatives.

Located on the northern edge of campus, the farm functions as an outdoor lab, supporting innovative sustainable agricultural studies and experiments.

The Purdue Student Farm Team exemplifies the land-grant mission through their hands-on education, applied research and deep community engagement. With a truly integrated team of students, staff and faculty, they’ve cultivated not only thriving crops, but also a transformative learning environment leading to a lasting impact on Indiana’s agricultural landscape.” -Bernie Engel, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture

Petrus Langenhoven, director of PSF and clinical assistant professor in the HLA department, emphasized that while the farm contributes to research and extension, its primary focus remains education.

Receiving the TEAM Award is validating in terms of the work we have put into educating students. Although we do have our separate research, extension or academic agendas, we come together at the farm as a collective to really put the education of students first. It’s not just about growing food; it’s about educating the next generation of horticulturalists, vegetable growers or people that are interested in sustainable farming practices.” -Langenhoven

Langenhoven also shared that one of the most rewarding aspects of leading PSF is watching students grow into capable leaders over the years as their skills and techniques improve. By the time these students graduate, their ability to manage various activities on the farm has grown significantly.

Beyond its educational mission, the farm is a hub for sustainable innovation and community engagement. It partners with the West Lafayette community and Throckmorton/Meigs Purdue Ag Center as well as vegetable producers across Indiana. The farm also collaborates with the Purdue Cultural Centers to provide international and multicultural students with familiar foods that connect them to home.

“Working with Purdue Cultural Centers has been a meaningful part of what we do and creates a nice community-feel,” Adair noted. “Having a place for these students to grab some vegetables that they might not otherwise be able to get of hold of super easily is really great.”

Although PSF is modest in size—just three and a half acres—it’s a very intensive vegetable production. Last year, the farm, in conjunction with PSF production activities at Meigs, produced approximately 27,300 pounds of high-quality produce. This harvest supplies numerous campus initiatives, including the Hotel and Tourism Management School and Purdue University Dining Halls. It also supports a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program with about 150 participants, many of whom are affiliated with Purdue.

“Our CSA program runs from the end of June through the Friday before Thanksgiving, offering weekly and bi-weekly shares,” said Adair. “It’s important for our students to experience working in a farm that has a purpose to sell and has a reason to grow while interacting with the community.”

In line with the farm’s sustainability goals, it donates surplus harvest to the ACE Food Pantry. In 2024 alone, the farm contributed 1,700 pounds of produce to help combat food security in the Greater Lafayette community.

The success of the Purdue Student Farm is made possible by a dedicated, interdisciplinary team, including: Petrus Langenhoven (HLA), Chris Adair (HLA) Ashley Adair (HLA), Moriah Bilenky (HLA), Wil Brown-Grimm (Agricultural Research and Graduate Education), Amanda Deering (Food Science), Nathan Deppe (HLA), Steven Doyle (Agricultural and Biological Engineering), Milena Agila (Entomology), Josue Cerritos Garcia (HLA), Wenjing Guan (HLA), Steve Hallett (HLA), Lori Hoagland (HLA), Yiwei Huang (HLA), Laura Ingwell (Entomology), Lori Jolly-Brown (HLA), Kirby Kalbaugh (Agricultural Research and Graduate Education), Tian Li (Mechanical Engineering), Elizabeth Maynard (HLA), Stephen Meyers (HLA), Scott Monroe (Purdue Extension), Aaron Thompson (HLA), Amy Thompson (Purdue Extension) and Ariana Torres (Agricultural Economics and HLA).