ACRES farm is a student run organization that strives in cultivating crops to later sell to Laramie Farmers’ Market. Students grow crops seasonally at the ACRES farm. ASUW had initiated a bill to incorporate ACRES as an ASUW organization, but that bill has been vetoed.
ASUW has vetoed a bill that would make the Agricultural Community Resources for Everyday Sustainability a part of ASUW.
ACRES is a 1.8 acre vegetable farm that is run by volunteers and students.
ASUW established a senate bill so ACRES could transition from a Recognized Student Organization to an ASUW Program. This means that for continual growth it would require a more stable and consistent leadership and monetary structure. All this can best be provided by becoming a program of ASUW.
While the senate voted in favor of the bill, ASUW president Joel Defebaugh vetoed the bill at the end of February.
The bill was vetoed because there had been a lot of underlining circumstances that had not been clear prior to the bill being made. The land that ACRES is currently on belongs to the university, with the understanding that it is for the use by the College of Agriculture.
The College of Agriculture leases the land to ACRES with the understanding that the land is used to further the education and research aspects of ACRES consistent with the College of Agriculture. If ACRES became a Program of ASUW it would no longer have direct ties with the College of Agriculture, which means the land lease would have to be resubmitted every year for approval by the Dean of the College of Agriculture.
This bill would have also caused an annual increase of student fees, while the university is already undergoing budget cuts.
“It is my belief that ASUW shouldn’t add a program of this magnitude outside of the student fee biennium planning cycle,” Defebaugh said. “It is not financially sustainable for our organization to operate a program entirely out of the ASUW Reserve for more than an entire fiscal year.”
However, some senators still have hope for ACRES becoming part of ASUW in the future.
“Students recognize that ACRES is something that can be educationally beneficial to the community and the university, and that the College of Agriculture recognized that and is going to provide more financial funding for ACRES until ASUW can think about further programming for next year,” College of Agriculture Senator Claire Dinneen said.
However, the future of the relationship between ACRES and ASUW still remains unclear.
