Loose Leaf Notes

The following was published in The Floyd Press on October 8, 2009

“I like to get my hands dirty!” shouted one Floyd Elementary School student who was digging potatoes at last week’s Farm to School harvest. Another student, when asked if he grew potatoes at home answered, “No, but I kinda want to now.”

Those students were part of three fifth grade classes participating in a pilot project event at a field farmed by Five Penny Farm on Shooting Creek Road. Organized by Mike Burton of Moon Indigo Farm, a Community Supported Agriculture farm in Check, the Farm to School harvest was part of a nationwide initiative to incorporate locally grown produce into school lunch programs.

With a goal of supporting local farmers and providing nutritious food to schools without the cost of travel miles, Farm to School has been authorized by Congress as a seed grant program, but has yet to be funded. Burton believes that start-up programs already in place will have a better chance of receiving support when grant funding is appropriated.

According to a recent story in the Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 2,000 Farm to School programs are active in about 40 states. “The USDA is supportive but has left it up to school divisions,” said the county’s school nutrition coordinator, Pam Harris, who attended the potato harvest. Harris first learned about Farm to School through a conference she attended in North Carolina. More recently, she received a memo from the state superintendent requesting that all school divisions do a Farm to School week in November, she reported.

“Does anyone know what makes a potato go green?” Burton asked the group of approximately 60 students. The students learned that there are about 1,000 varieties of potatoes and that some are purple. “Potatoes have been around for 4,000 years. What we’re going to be doing today people have been doing for 1,000’s of years,” Burton shouted from the back of a flatbed trailer, soon be filled with potatoes.

The fifth grade students of Alice Slusher, Alice Harding, and Amanda Morgan were joined by Blue Mountain School’s first and second graders who were on a day long field trip geared to learning about food. Together, the children watched a farm intern on a tractor loosen the soil with a digger before they began pulling up potatoes of all sizes and enthusiastically announcing their discoveries. Along with the Kennebec potatoes, an occasional worm, grasshopper and turnip was also found.

In less than an hour baskets and buckets were full. The potatoes were spread out on the flatbed trailer and sorted for best baking size. They will be baked and served in all the county schools, Harris said. Burton noted that as the program grows, more local farmers growing vegetables will be needed.

The students snacked on locally grown apples before boarding the bus and heading back to school. “We hope this is the start of a longstanding and worthwhile project benefiting our children, our farmers and our community,” Burton said. ~ Colleen Redman