Farm

In much of the Western world, the act of farming has been relegated to commodity cropping. The average age of farmers is close to 60 and rough estimates suggest that only 2 percent of our population is actually engaged in farming. Since the 70s, farms have also been getting bigger and less actual food has been grown.

The question then arises of who is going to grow our food? And from a culinary perspective, who is going to grow it well?

These questions can be considered within our educational institutions. Rural communities have an amazing opportunity to be reviving the much respected act of growing food. But urban communities have just as many opportunities for such collaborations and should be considering their own actions to grow food in cities.

The real point in all of this is that modelling new and exciting farming opportunities for our students is key to both a healthy agricultural sector, and if done with the earth in mind, also healthy for the planet.

At CWDHS, we are endeavoring to grow and produce food in a variety of ways.
1. We would like to enlist some of the adjacent land to grow vegetable crops that could service the eating and cooking needs of the school (population 1600)
2. We would like to maintain a small animal farm operation where we could re-connect important perspectives for both future cooks and the community in general.
3. We would like to maintain a greenhouse where we could grow greens and particular vegetables year round.

These three initiatives will not only model an alternative path for agriculture in our community, but will greatly impress upon future students the importance of these kinds of connections between the eater and the food that is grown.