The history of farm-to-school in Minnesota is generally traced to the 1990’s when a state bill was introduced that supported Minnesota-grown foods in school meals, but we have a much earlier example of farm-to-school right in Virginia. The Independent School District of Virginia established a school farm in the early 1920’s on the 80 acres where the golf course and hospital now stand. Agriculture students worked on the farm during the summer, taught by Russ Pickering, a young man who had farming experience with his father. The city built a home for the Farm Superintendent as well as a barn and other buildings, including a dairy building with a 40-quart ice cream freezer and butter churns. The farm had dairy cows, work horses, poultry and hogs. Sixty-seven acres were planted in oats and hay in addition to vegetables. In addition to keeping animals and tending crops, students were required to operate and repair farm machinery. The milk, eggs, potatoes and vegetables were used by the “domestic science” department and the cafeteria: farm-to-school!
The most recent local effort at farm-to-school is taking place in Aurora at Mesabi East Schools. Having a garden and teaching students to grow food was a huge dream for Rachel Doherty and Barb Hinsz of Mesabi East Schools just three years ago. And now, the ME3C (Mesabi East Environmental Education Center) is a reality. A room in the school was used as a growing room for several years, but the dream was for something much bigger. In May of 2018, the school district acquired Plagemann’s greenhouse. The facility has five large greenhouses behind the main building and one smaller attached greenhouse in addition to office space, learning space for students, and a whole room for hydroponics. Essentia Health has helped to fund the hydroponics equipment. It has taken some time, but much of the greenhouse space is currently useable and the rest will be useable by next year. The Horticulture class, an elective for juniors and seniors, meets there for an hour each day. Students have learned to grow microgreens and lettuces—in fact, they’re planning to grow the entire salad for prom this spring! And they’re researching how to grow sunflowers (the school flower) for graduation. That’s one of the things the students like best: experimenting with different seeds, different growing media, different light environments….and learning what works best for the particular flower or vegetable they’re wanting to harvest. It’s hands-on science at its best.
The Special Education class that Rachel teaches for 9th-12th graders spends two hours each day in the greenhouse. The experience is especially enjoyable for these students because their disabilities aren’t really an issue here—they love planting and tending their flowers and greens and teaching the elementary students about growing food. Right now, all of the students are involved in making holiday decorations—wreaths and centerpieces that they’ll sell at an Indoor Winter Farmers Market on Saturday, December 14 from 10-3 at the greenhouse. They went out and foraged the boughs themselves, then learned about wreath-making and the different types of evergreens. The wreaths are beautiful—I plan to stop in on the 14th to buy at least one!
Rachel and Barb have brought in $160,000 in grants to the program so far, and they’re applying for more. The most significant will be a USDA Farm to School Planning Grant that will allow them to develop a template for other area schools to follow in implementing Farm to School in rural areas like ours in a northern climate. The program is new this year and still small. The students are growing microgreens and lettuce for Mesabi East cafeteria lunches. In addition to that, a variety of local produce comes from Early Frost Farm and Northern Delicious, and Nana’s Noodles provides homemade pasta! This year, the program has been able to provide one meal per month that features locally grown/made food. They’re hoping to attract more growers for next year and expand to more frequent locally-sourced meals. The students love it! There have been some great photos of local lunches on Facebook like this one posted by STEM teacher Lindsay Engel.
In northern Minnesota, the Aitkin Farm to School program has been going on for several years and provided helpful information to Mesabi East. And there is a program in Duluth. Nationally, Farm to School is growing. The most recent Farm to School Census results are from 2015; a new census is being conducted right now in the fall of 2019. But even four years ago, 42% of the school districts surveyed by the USDA said they participated in farm to school activities…that’s over 42,000 schools across the country. The impact of farm to school is generally thought to be better nutrition and health for the students, but the census shows that farm to school programs also resulted in $789 million being spent with local farmers, helping the economies of local communities like ours. That’s economic development!
Last summer, the ME3C students took home “gardens in a bucket” so that they could continue to tend the plants they had started at school. And the program sponsored “pop-up” farmers markets on Sundays and grew the number of customers over the summer. They plan to repeat that this summer. This spring, the students will sell seeds to the community too. And, of course, experiment with planting them. Of the five greenhouses, one will be devoted to flowers and the rest to various crops and different growing systems. Staff negotiated a donation of 44 self-watering raised-bed planters from Ecogarden Systems which will allow lots of experimentation. And probably hefty yields too.
Plans for the area right in front of the facility include a large pollinator garden, something that everyone driving or cycling into Aurora will notice. Long-range plans include edible gardens at the Mesabi East athletic complex…an innovation over the usual mowed-grass choice. Everybody’s on board with this new venture and it’s generating lots of excitement. The students are probably most excited of all. Way to go Mesabi East!
