I was never someone who particularly liked being outside. I know that sounds bad, but I just didn’t. There were bugs, and I have allergies, so I just decided it wasn’t for me. I am happy to say that’s changed recently.
This term, I had the chance to take the Urban Farm course, the University of Oregon course within the Landscape Architecture school where students grow crops and learn about agriculture. I’m happy to say that it has changed the way I view the world. It has shown me the importance of knowing how to grow food, regardless of whether or not you choose to do it.
It also made me angry that it took me being in my last term of college and actively seeking this information out to learn something that is so fundamental to being a human. It seems like something that children in elementary school should be learning — something that should be so interwoven into education that by the time kids go off into the world, it is second nature.
But, is that realistic?
In the Willamette Valley, it is extremely realistic. The valley is home to incredibly fertile soil which makes Eugene a perfect place to learn how to grow food. It makes sense that we would want to teach kids — or anyone who doesn’t know how to grow food — here because the soil being fertile means that their crops are more likely to grow, helping them stay engaged and hopefully stay motivated to keep learning.
There are other reasons to learn how to grow food, one of them being that Oregon is part of a country where we import a lot of our food. In 2022, the US imported almost 200 billion dollars worth of food. According to Harper Keeler, the Director of the Urban Farm program, “We have about four days of food in our local community.” That means that if we were to have an earthquake, or some natural disaster where nothing could get into Eugene, we would run out of food within one business week.
Another reason to have a deeper understanding of food knowledge is to understand the harm that the industrialized agriculture industry has on the environment.
“The industrialized food system is probably the biggest contributor to global climate change that there is,” Keeler said. Whether it be fuel usage, emissions, soil erosion or deforestation, the impacts of the agriculture industry are far-reaching and large in their devastation.
I am happy to say that there are initiatives in our local community focused on teaching children how to grow food like the School Garden Project, but it is not a statewide movement as of yet.
That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Why is this not so normalized that it is a national subject in schools? At the very least why is it not statewide
We are in a uniquely good spot to do it. The soil is good; Oregon is a very agriculture-focused state; there’s plenty of rainfall and it could encourage students to eat their fruit and vegetables considering they helped grow them.
And for those of you reading who don’t know anything about how to grow food, you should grab a book or watch some videos because I promise it’s really not that hard.
Take it from someone who grew up in a city and only just began learning about it; you’ll wish you started earlier.
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