Posted on Jun 24, 2022
Kansas City-area farmers are providing more students with fresh local produce for lunch
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The KC Food Hub is seeing an uptick in schools buying from them after districts faced supply chain disruptions during the pandemic.
Tomatoes and lettuce line the fields at Mike Pearl’s farm on a windy day in Parkville, Missouri. Now he has plans to plant even more.
“We're gonna have a lot of the usual suspects, if you will: the watermelon, cantaloupe later this season. You know, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes,” Pearl said.
Despite the wind, he said, this year's crops are off to a good start, and they’re for some very special customers: local students. Pearl said he’s excited about these customers since he never grew up eating produce like this for lunch.
“I’m not gonna tell you how old I am, but I can't imagine in my school cafeteria eating quinoa, or, I don't know, fresh kale greens,” Pearl said.
Tomatoes and lettuce line the fields at Mike Pearl’s farm on a windy day in Parkville, Missouri. Now he has plans to plant even more.
“We're gonna have a lot of the usual suspects, if you will: the watermelon, cantaloupe later this season. You know, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes,” Pearl said.
Despite the wind, he said, this year's crops are off to a good start, and they’re for some very special customers: local students. Pearl said he’s excited about these customers since he never grew up eating produce like this for lunch.
“I’m not gonna tell you how old I am, but I can't imagine in my school cafeteria eating quinoa, or, I don't know, fresh kale greens,” Pearl said.
Kansas City-area farmers are providing more students with fresh local produce for lunch
Posted from kcur.org
Children
Food/Chow
Farming
Agriculture
Kansas City
Posted 2 y ago
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Just had a text to my wife from a friend of hers in California and she says if you want lettuce in your sandwich, you have to pay extra. Really?
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Both school districts partnering with the food hub are looking forward to the opportunity to teach kids about local growers.
The De Soto School District will be holding “Farm-to-Fork Fridays” to highlight which farm grew a specific product. Baldner said she hopes this helps students realize where their food comes from.
"I feel like that's something that can be lacking in education is understanding where and how we get our foods,” Baldner said.
Back at his Parkville farm, Pearl said that, despite the increase in demand, he’s not planning on getting rich off selling to schools this fall. He said it’s about the feeling he gets from doing it.
“We're helping educate the kids. We're helping, hopefully, a lifelong practice of eating nutritiously, eating for your health, eating and trying things that you've never tried before,” Pearl said. “It's a warm and fuzzy that I get out of it.”
..."Both school districts partnering with the food hub are looking forward to the opportunity to teach kids about local growers.
The De Soto School District will be holding “Farm-to-Fork Fridays” to highlight which farm grew a specific product. Baldner said she hopes this helps students realize where their food comes from.
"I feel like that's something that can be lacking in education is understanding where and how we get our foods,” Baldner said.
Back at his Parkville farm, Pearl said that, despite the increase in demand, he’s not planning on getting rich off selling to schools this fall. He said it’s about the feeling he gets from doing it.
“We're helping educate the kids. We're helping, hopefully, a lifelong practice of eating nutritiously, eating for your health, eating and trying things that you've never tried before,” Pearl said. “It's a warm and fuzzy that I get out of it.”
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Holtville, Alabama: A Rural Community - 1945 - CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage
A look at the Holtville and its community. .CharlieDeanArchives - Archive footage from the 20th century making history come alive!
I believe that is the way it should have always been. Schools are supposed to be pillars of the local community. The should invest in the local and regional farmers and ranchers. This video demonstrates these principles in a high school in 1945. This was a prototype school that seemed to have been very effective. Yes it rural America, but there should be little difficulty to implement this in urban communities. It would help to foster more urban farming, which we are in desperate need of. The DOD school on NAS New Orleans, JRB operates and teaches urban and sustainable farming/gardening practices. They recently built a pavilion next to the patch to facilitate outdoor classroom. A caveat here would be the reversal of the dangerous trend of sending our food production out of the Country to Mexico and Canada. I mean, a Texan can't get any dang green onions that ain't from Mexico. They are bland as heck, put Farmers out of a livelihood and that just ain't right.
Holtville, Alabama: A Rural Community - 1945
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNvxpapGolg
Holtville, Alabama: A Rural Community - 1945
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNvxpapGolg
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