Community Supported Agriculture | PlantingProgress

Local Farms and Community Supported Agriculture:

If you have a farm and would like to list it with other farms in Community Supported Agriculture, check out The Robyn Van En Center. It provides a national resource center about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) for people across the nation and around the world. The Robyn Van En Center also offers outreach and works to gain publicity about CSA farms in order to benefit community farmers and communities everywhere.

List your CSA Farm or Update your Farm Listing

https://www.wilson.edu/wilson/asp/content.asp?ekfrm=1642

Let's Move | PlantingProgress

The First Lady's new initiative Let's Move focuses on Healthy Choices, Healthier Schools, Physical Activity, and Access to Affordable Healthy Food.

This program is reforming school lunches, bringing together school lunches and nutrition, and helping to provide people with access to affordable healthy food.

Let's Move has started The Healthier US Schools Challenge Program which changes and challenges the standards for schools’ food quality, children's participation in meal programs, general physical activity, and nutrition education. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be working with these schools to ensure the success of this program. To sign your school up please visit: http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/healthierus/index.html

Contact Planting Progress

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Any information you would like to share with us is appreciated.

Info@PlantingProgress.org

Planting Progress is a social and educational networking site created to provide resources to educators and people interested in bringing together school gardens, local farms, and lunch programs.

The following are just a few positive impacts we believe will happen if people start to work hand in hand.

School Gardens and Educational Impact.

Children will learn where their food originates, be exposed to tangible nutritional education and ultimately perform better in school if they incorporate a plant based diet into their lifestyle.

School Gardens and Health Impact.

By teaching children the benefits of a plant based diet the rates of obesity, attention disorders, and depression can be lowered.

School Gardens and Environmental Impact.

Raising children to become environmental stewards will help transition this country into the sustainable leader it is striving to become. Children will have more of an understanding of the earth, a stronger connectivity to nature and a greater desire to preserve it.

Why Reform Through School Gardens?

1. School Gardens and Knowledge.

A recent interview done by Jamie Oliver, leader of The Food Revolution, suggests that children know very little about where their food comes from. Many do not know that French fries come from potatoes, and ketchup from tomatoes.

2. School Gardens and Improved Health.

Children need to learn about nutrition and see good examples in schools. The New England Journal of Medicine says severe obesity, particularly in children, is so great that the associated diseases and complications, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer, that children are likely to have shorter life expectancies than their parents.

3. School Gardens and Environmental Awareness.

There is a need to fulfill the absence of nature in children’s lives. A study published two years ago in an issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences finds the use of America's parks and forests may be down by as much as 25 percent since 1987. Richard Louv explores research linking the absence of nature in children's lives to rising rates of obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

4. School Gardens and Awareness of Social Responsibility.

The lack of social responsibility by our youth is becoming apparent, not only in performance based studies, but in student apathy, lack of self-responsibility and false self-esteem.

There is a need for children to be exposed to an integrated curriculum encouraging hands-on, inquiry-based learning in a cooperative setting. Environmental stewardship can be learned by designing, planting, and maintaining gardens; harvesting, preparing food and learning respect for the environment from which food comes. Children need to learn responsibility for their environment and community. Taking ownership of a school garden helps provide a foundation of attentiveness, awareness and corporation for children. Children who grow their own food are more likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables (Canaris, 1995; Libman, 2007; McAleese & Rankin, 2007; Pothukuchi, 2004) Therefore, combating the rising rates of obesity, attention disorders, and depression and providing the foundation for higher academic achievement.