Cultivating Community Connections: From seed to table

Cultivating Community Connections: From seed to table

Summary

The goal of this project was to form a partnership between Cheshire Career Center and Stonewall Farm in order to significantly connect students to local land and develop an environmentally sustainable agribusiness. The staff at Stonewall Farm and Cheshire Career Center understood that when students develop their own local agribusiness within the school, they learn the importance of a strong connection between farming, land stewardship, community, and the economy. This project encouraged students to take on all aspects of processing a farm-based project, from growing and harvesting, to producing, marketing and selling their product.

Cultivating Community Connections (C3) worked to develop hands-on education to introduce how environmental stewardship and farming can work together to be economically viable. In a climate of economic strain, environmental degradation, and farming subsidies, youth participation and understanding of a sustainable, environmentally responsible agribusiness is essential.

The students chose to produce two soups, potato leek and chicken salsa. Horticulture students planted and harvested the crops. Culinary students harvested vegetables, processed ingredients, and canned the finished soup. Marketing students created a soup brand, performed market research, determined a price and chose a target consumer base. Continuing this project, the students will organize and host an event serving a final meal featuring this product.

Objectives/Performance Targets

• Students will gain insight into the holistic experience of creating a product, beginning by planting the seeds, harvesting the produce, processing the ingredients, and marketing the product.

  Students will become familiar with environmentally sustainable farming techniques and challenges.

  Students will understand the effort it takes to make an economically sustainable agribusiness.

  Students will develop a more in-depth understanding of what land stewardship is.

  Community consumer base will enjoy a local, delicious, student-produced product.

  Students gain valuable perspectives on the business of farming; it’s not just working the land, farming involves business management skills and effective marketing.

  Students become active community members, affecting their local society in a positive way.

  Project reaches out to larger community to create awareness regarding quality education and the importance of local sustainable farming.

  Project will prepare students to be responsible business people and socially conscious citizens.

  Stonewall Farm will increase their audience base to include high school-aged students.

Accomplishments/Milestones

The successes of Cultivating Community Connections (C3): from seed to table were abundant. C3 empowered students to take initiative regarding the quality of food offered to consumers. Students witnessed how the health of a food crop was directly related to the environment in which it was grown. They saw how local economics are affected by food economics. The students took responsibility for the quality of the product. The culinary students cooked one batch of soup with local crops to donate to a community soup kitchen fund raiser event titled ‘The Empty Bowls Project’.

One of Stonewall’s objectives was to increase the community who benefited from the farm; this goal was met. A gap within Stonewall Farm’s community service was filled by this program. Stonewall Farm was able to reach high school-aged students and initiate conversations regarding environmental and economic sustainability through local stewardship farming. Because of the C3 project, many conversations have begun between organizations and individuals regarding education and local food. “Seeing this project come to fruition is more rewarding than I could have imagined,” said Stonewall Farm Executive Director Kathy Harrington, “It was wonderful to see the culinary students pulling the ingredients for the soup that the horticulture students had planted and grew. It was a beautiful example of keeping our youth connected to the land and the role of agriculture in their lives.”

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Ten Cheshire Career Center classes worked together to produce the two soup varieties grown from seed. Three Introduction to Horticulture classes, taught by Sue Kolivas, planted leeks and onions in the school greenhouse at the end of March. The horticulture students walked to Stonewall Farm’s nearby field in April to plant sweet peppers, hot peppers, and tomatoes. The leeks and onions were transplanted in May by the horticulture students from the greenhouse to the same field as the peppers and tomatoes. Potatoes, for a fall harvest, were also planted at this time. The students were not convinced that their work would produce a bountiful fall harvest.

Marketing students began researching questions such as: how much would consumers pay for local soup and where would they be most likely to buy soup. The students also began rough drafts of a soup label. One marketing student commented early in the label revision process that he wanted the label to look as if it was done by professionals rather than high school students; he was inspired to create a product they could be proud to put on a shelf next to a commercial soup.

The tomatoes were harvested first; they were delivered to the three culinary classes directed by Scott Rogers. Scott Rogers said, “It will be great for culinary students to pull their ingredients from the ground, rather than off the shelf”. The culinary students learned to freeze and store 400 pounds of tomatoes. Three classes of horticulture and culinary students joined Stonewall Farm’s garden manager, Amanda Hopkins, and project coordinator, Sonja Riddle, in the field to harvest 1,000 pounds of potatoes, as well as peppers and onions. Out in the field, one could hear conversations revolving around sustainable farming practices and the worth of farming locally. Being a pesticide free field, the weeds were abundant and made the students truly experience the extra work a farmer goes through to produce an environmentally friendly product. Partially due to late planting, the leeks grew poorly, and the students realized that not everything a farmer plants makes it through the growing season unscarred by draught, fungus, insects, weeds, rain, and rodents. “These are the risks a farmer takes,” Farmer Amanda reminded them.

The students learned the economic lesson of shipping costs; growing local goods costs less to the consumer and the environment. Many students noted that using local food meant the vegetables could stay on the plant longer and be picked when ripe. Students discussed how they thought nutritional value of the food may be affected by the stage at which it is picked.

Back in the culinary classroom, students learned cutting skills [practicing on] local onions. Using locally acquired naturally-raised chickens from Misty Knoll Farms, culinary students studied then implemented the processing steps of a whole chicken. The chickens were used for meat and stock. Celery, cilantro, hot and sweet peppers, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes were grown at Stonewall Farm and processed for storage by the culinary students. Leeks were obtained locally from Walker Farm and processed by culinary students. Stonewall Farm purchased a can sealer and fly wheel for the project and the students were able to follow HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) canning methodology to can soup in the classroom.

Meanwhile, three marketing students worked to develop a soup brand. With advice from Stonewall Farm marketing coordinator, Letitia Pellerin, the students designed a soup label following FDA and UDSA labeling guidelines. The label background was intended to demonstrate the connection of farm to table, where the community has an intimate and necessary connection to the origin of their food. The students independently found a local printing company to print the soup labels.

Once the crop had been harvested, the soup processed and the label printed, the students were ready to present their agribusiness product to the community. The annual Stonewall Farm Fare was a great venue to introduce their product. They chose to have the first batch of canned chicken salsa for display while having fresh hot soup available to taste. The result was impressive. Fare goers’ interest in the new local product was evident as they commented on the richness of the program as well as the great flavor of the soup. Those consumers interested in purchasing soup could write their contact information down to receive information about the program plus a note alerting them when cans are ready to buy next month. One horticulture student presenting soup at the Farm Fare commented, “I liked to see how local farms harvest crops. I wonder how much healthier the local crops are over food from factory farms. Participating in this project was a lot of fun.” Consumers were excited to have a locally grown and processed soup available to them and were impressed when they learned the project was done by local high school students. The project coordinator said, “developing an environmentally sustainable agribusiness within the schools educates students and public alike about the importance of a strong connection between farming, land stewardship, community and the economy. It was amazing to work with these classes as they came together to build a common goal.”

As with every pilot project, C3 faced its own challenges. One of the foremost challenges was smoothly integrating the project into an already busy school curriculum. In attempt to reduce this challenge, it would be advised to replace similar curriculum with project material and allow for additional meeting and prep time in order to develop common and realistic expectations between staff prior to working with students. Within the class room, soup production has the potential to become a great time consumer perhaps at the cost of learning other new material. This may be remedied by out sourcing the canning step of the project to a local company. Originally, the Earth Dinner was designed to fundraise, raise awareness, and build community. C3 is now looking to collaborate with Antioch University New England, where the culinary students produce a locally grown commencement dinner. This evolution of the Earth Dinner would meet all but the fundraising aspect and greatly increasing the element of community. Lastly, at the moment, the project’s budget is distorted with all expenses and little income, as the soup production is underway and sales should begin in the next month.

Collaborators: