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Food & Community
Many schools are benefiting from the natural learning environment provided by the introduction of a school garden. In a joint project involving Growing Communities, Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm and Health Promotion Queensland, many of Queensland’s local State schools are being encouraged to foster learning environments emphasizing gardening, healthy food choices and outdoor activity. Critical to the success of these projects is the involvement of as many community participants as possible. Each school aims to involve staff, students, P&C, as well as numerous other groups from the broader community. Children participating in school gardening projects enjoy hands on learning, physical activity, fresh air and clean food prepared simply. Inspired teachers also use the garden as a place to teach Maths, Science and English. This is a neat little video for anyone considering starting their own school-based organic gardening project.
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One of the best ways for children to learn the importance of making positive food choices is to get them actively involved in growing their own food. That’s exactly what’s happening at Winchester School in Toronto Canada. In this video, Mary Ito reports on how Winchester’s inner city children are being provided with the opportunity to learn about growing their own fruits and vegetables. In doing so, the children learn about soil preparation, planting from seed, bugs, weeds, harvesting and the importance of consuming good foods. All of the food grown by the children is used in the school lunch program. This is a really worthwhile program in which the children benefit from eating fresh produce as well as learning about where their food comes from.
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Mikey Azzara is the Outreach Coordinator for the North East Organic Farming Association of New Jersey. Mikey’s an inspirational young man who’s performing some really important work connecting New Jersey’s organic farmers with the local communities they serve. In his quest to learn more about how our food is grown, as well as the sustainable practices needed to support future generations, Mikey has studied extensively and has also travelled to Italy to learn from Italy’s much-respected organic farmers. Mikey’s rightly proud of his New Jersey roots and with his obvious leadership capacity and stated desire to bring organics to the youth generation, he’s someone we’re bound to hear a lot more of. Keep going Mikey - we’re right behind you!
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There are some exciting models emerging within the organic community. Some of these aim to connect local farmers with schools. A wonderful - and hugely successful - example of this type of model exists in Marin County. Marin Organic are an association of farmers, ranchers, agriculture advisers and marketing experts. The organization serves the local community by linking growers with local consumers. In this video, Scott Davidson, School Lunch Program head, explains how Marin Organic is forming a bridge between organic farmers and local schools. Apart from helping to provide approximately 12,000 children each week with nutritious locally produced food, the program also enables children to learn about, and connect with, where their food comes from. Great stuff!
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In most Western countries we treat the symptoms, rather than identifying and addressing the root causes, of disease. It’s no surprise that the leading cause of premature death in Western society is heart disease. Our never-ending quest for efficiency, convenience and uniformity is making us sick. We’re overweight, we’re stressed and we’re tired. In this video, four children let us know that they are aware of the problem and would like us to do something about it. They’re asking for better foods to be served in schools. It’s a simple yet important message they have to share. With so much of our children’s learning taking place in the school environment these days surely it makes sense to teach the benefits of consuming positive foods from an early age?
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The Organic Center performs a crucial role in combatting the myths routinely espoused and actively promoted by today’s global agrochemical companies. The Organic Center undertakes and commissions scholarly research across all aspects of both organic and conventional agriculture. As such, they are particularly well positioned to provide relevant insights into the benefits of leading an organic lifestyle. The following video provides a synopsis of the work performed by The Organic Center as well as offering some robust data supporting organic food consumption. It also introduces the Center’s Mission Organic 2010, which aims to increase organic food consumption in the US from its current level of 3% to 10% by 2010. This is a really worthwhile mission and we strongly encourage you to get behind the Organic Center by registering your details with them today.
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Greg Christian is someone who cares. He cares a lot in fact. As founder and Chairman of the Organic School Project, he’s played an important role in bringing positive food choices to thousands of children. We first talked with Greg while undertaking research for our article on organic choices in schools. As a professional chef, Greg doesn’t assume that he has the requisite credentials to teach others what is, and isn’t, healthy. Instead, he simply aims to help young people learn more about positive food choices. What are positive food choices? In this short video, Greg explains exactly what he means by food being “positive”. Essentially, Greg believes food should be sourced respectfully. He emphasizes the need for us to keep in tact the all important connection we have - or should have - with our food sources. We think he makes a lot of sense.
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