Concordia to Become a Farm

‘Hyperlocal’ Referendum Question Prohibits Outside Food

Graphic Graham Tallen Apples

It’s about to get a lot harder to get through the Hall Building—and we’re not just talking about a few downed escalators.

Be prepared to dodge pigs and chickens in September, because Concordia is becoming a farm.

Concordia students have voted in favour of the “hyperlocal food initiative” referendum question, put forth by the Community Food Collective.

Students may not have known just how hyper they were talking. The group now claims they’ve been mandated to ensure all food consumed on campus is grown no more than five metres away from school.

The change will mean Concordia can no longer support itself as a university, and will be converted into a farm over the summer.

Bails of hay are already being stacked into classrooms, and at least some students are ecstatic about their exams being replaced with weeding duty.

“One greenhouse is great, but why not just make the whole building a greenhouse?” said Sunshine Stardust, who is doing a major in (you guessed it) greenhouses.

In an exclusive interview with The Link, Stardust says that becoming a self-sustaining food island is the only way we will survive the Mayan apocalypse. Stardust also thinks it’s 2011.

Some student politicians seem to be embracing the change, too.

Using The Link’s highly advanced data analysis technology, we have determined that any councillor with a more than 20 per cent likelihood of wearing a beanie hat fully supports the farming initiative.

“We’re trailblazers here, no other student body has been so progressive as to mandate its union to become this local,” said incoming CSU president Ned Bunty.

Crates of chickens are lining the tunnels until the farm is complete, leading one student to tell The Link that Concordia “somehow managed to make that leaky tunnel walk even more hellish,” his ears still ringing.

The student had several tufts of hair missing after running the chicken gauntlet, and has developed a rational fear of birds. Students who do not enjoy being screamed at by chickens are advised to stay above ground.

“We had our suspicions all along,” said business student Molson Miller, adding he first knew something was afoot when mounds of dirt started forming in corners of the Coors Light School of Cash Money.

Miller isn’t the only one questioning whether this farm initiative was the right decision. Once it started spreading around Facebook that this question could be interpreted to include no imported coffee, a panicked horde of undergrads raced around campus, plastering it with posters saying “I <3 cofee. Vote NO.”

But the collective quickly dispatched their squad of goats, destroying the posters before the next morning’s classes.

Of course, some protested for entirely different reasons. A few geology students were worried that the new farm equipment would damage the untouched asbestos reserves lining Concordia’s walls.

NOTE: This is spoof content. All characters and events in this article—even those based on real people—are entirely fictional.