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School gardens coming to fruition

By Russ Grayson - posted Thursday, 29 November 2007


In recent weeks we've been bombarded with political promises on the “big” issues like the economy and defence. But what about the “little” promises?

Let's look at one example to see how the rush by the two major parties to outdo each other can lead to decisions that that are not only hasty but could be dead wrong.

A micro industry is born

Federal funding for gardens in schools is not the stuff on which that elections are won. Those who are aware would probably classify it as one of those “motherhood” things, the benefits of which are so obvious that no one would oppose it. Thus Labor's promise of $12.8 million over four years for a national roll out of school food gardens has attracted little comment other than from those already involved in implementing such projects, some of whom fear being sidelined if Labor's promise comes to fruition.

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But why gardens in schools? What do they offer to the education of our young? Why are they something that Labor sought to buy votes with?

The answer to the last question is that what happens in schools is political, especially at election time. To answer the two other questions, however, we have to realise that gardens growing food in schools, and their use in educational curricula, has become something of a micro-industry.

If you go to Adelaide's Black Forest Primary you can walk through the garden resplendent with hanging fruit, pass under trellises of climbing grape varieties to the outdoor classroom. This is the crux of the place for it is here that the school has brought a range of curricula subjects into the garden. They've been doing it now for 25 years.

Early days

After New Zealander, Robina McCurdy, led a three-day workshop at Black Forest primary in 1997, the idea of educational gardens in schools took off. Within a couple years, food gardens had started to appear in schools across the country.

Robina's workshop, however, was not the first example of the educational use of the gardens in schools. It can be traced back, in this country, to retired Brisbane school teacher Carolyn Nuttall who popularised the practice in her 1991 book, A Children's Food Forest.

Even before then there were school vegetable gardens, but it was Carolyn and Robina who popularised the practice and set it on course to becoming, eventually, a micro-industry.

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By 2005 the idea was further mainstreamed when noted chef and cookbook author, Stephanie Alexander, joined forces with community-based organisation, Cultivating Community, to develop the innovative Collingwood College garden in Melbourne.

The garden is an unexpected find in the city: set among high rise public housing towers in down-market inner urban Collingwood, the garden educates students in growing, harvesting, preparing, cooking and eating what they grow in shared, classroom meals. For a nation beset by childhood obesity, controversies over the advertising of junk food on children's television and poor nutritional health, the program offers clear benefits. It is, however, a garden of a different type to that at Black Forest school with its outdoor classroom.

Labor's threat

It is this difference that could be quashed if Labor goes ahead with its promise to exclusively propagate the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation model. Labor's focus on a single model of school garden program no doubt pleases the foundation, however it does not please others already involved in the use of school food gardens in education. They make use of different models adapted to their local circumstances.

One of these is Cultivating Community's CEO, Ben Neil. He recognises the good work done by the foundation and says that his organisation is in favour of Labor's proposal. He believes, however, that Labor would better serve the interests of both schools and those already involved in the use of gardens in them if it broadened its support to include approaches other than, but including, that of the Stephanie Alexander's foundation.

He asks whether opportunities will there be for schools, that already have kitchen garden projects, to access Labor's funding. It would be unfair to penalise schools that have already taken the initiative to set up their own garden project ahead of Labor's election promise.

The experience of Cultivating Community, says Mr Neil, shows that one approach does not fit all and that many students would miss out because their school would not have the capacity or space to develop the foundation's model. There are a number of schools such as Kings Patch, Fitzroy Primary and St Peters Primary, he points out, that are good examples of school garden programs that are flexible and which meet the needs of individual schools.

Models abound, but where is Labor?

There other gardens, in states other than Victoria, too. In Western Australia, East Perth City Farm, and in Brisbane, Growing Communities, a consultancy, already provide schools with edible garden services yet neither were consulted by Labor in its clearly off-the-cuff approach to policy development.

Models abound. There is the already-mentioned Black Forest model in Adelaide that, given its pioneering role in the development of school food garden practice and the integration of their school garden into the curriculum, would surely have warranted a call from Labor's policy wonks.

Then there's the approach of Care Designs in the New South Wales Illawarra. The organisation has obtained funding from local industry to impart skills to students in the design and management of gardens in a number of schools, and to train students as “garden ambassadors” to educate younger students and explain their gardens to the public and the media.

And in Sydney, local government is getting in on the act with Randwick City Council's Sustainable Schools Initiatives that assists a number of private and public schools in the municipality.

Also uncontacted by Labor is the national organisation, the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network (www.communitygarden.org.au), the only organisation to have held national conferences on school gardens in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. Why have they not heard from the policy makers?

Under Labor's plan who would decide which schools would receive funding and on what criteria? There are many organisations and individual schools able to assist in the development of educational food gardens, instigate healthy food programs and integrate activities into the curriculum at less cost than the Stephanie Alexander Foundation’s, admittedly good, model.

Those concerned would like a more considered, better thought out and comprehensive approach to this new field of education by Labor.

One can only wonder that, if this topic has been so poorly thought out by Labor, how considered are the rest of their minor policies?

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About the Author

Russ Grayson has a background in journalism and in aid work in the South Pacific. He has been editor of an environmental industry journal, a freelance writer and photographer for magazines and a writer and editor of training manuals for field staff involved in aid and development work with villagers in the Solomon Islands.

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