Yahoo! had an article today, about a rising trend in prep schools – growing gardens that the students work. They grow everything organically, and use some of it in their school dining hall. The purpose of these revived ‘agriculture’ programs, they said, is to teach kids where their food comes from, what kind of effort it takes to grow, and what kind of effect ‘conventional’ farming has on the environment.

Overall, I think their intentions are good. Kids have to actually do some physical labor (PREP SCHOOL KIDS even!), they learn how to get their hands dirty, and they learn to appreciate that food has to come from somewhere other than the supermarket. The efforts they're making there are admirable, I think. They're inadvertently raising awareness of what farmers do for the world. What I do not think is beneficial to these programs, is the part where kids are learning how 'bad' it is to farm conventionally – with pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, etc.

Sure, on a very, very small scale, they’re probably getting a couple of meals worth of food out of their garden. They don’t have to totally survive on what they grow, and they’re not having to make a living at it. They’re most likely being taught to think that growing food organically is the only way we ought to do it. But they’re not getting the whole picture. It takes a hundred thousand times more input, effort, planning, money, machinery, and yes, chemicals, to have enough to sell for a profit – to live on for the next year – than it does to have a green bean or two on your plate every once in a while. Organic farming is a very nice idea, but until the economics of farming get a drastic makeover, I don't think it is widely feasible.

Plus, I wonder if any of these kids' parents use chemicals on their lawn. While we’re all up in arms about caring for our planet perhaps people who think farmers are the only ones who need to change their ways, ought to take a look at their luscious, Technicolor-green grass… ? But that’s another soap box entirely. :)