Farm My School
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (09:46): Recently I saw the literal fruits of community efforts of the first successful pilot of Farm My School on the grounds of Bellarine Secondary College in Drysdale. Farm My School is the brilliant initiative of Geelong permaculture and sustainability gurus Ben Shaw and James McLennan. Driven by their passion for climate action, they identified that schools have access to land that could be used for food production. Students benefit by learning about food growing and waste practices and the creation of vocational career pathways, as well as weekly veggie boxes for school families and food for the school canteen. Communities get access to a commercially viable market garden, and the climate and environment benefit from reduced food miles and wastage.
In October last year I joined the local community who came together to build a farm in a day, a 24-hour farm building blitz that turned an empty field into rows and rows of garden beds. At the official launch in April, where we were joined by living gardening legend Costa, I was blown away by the transformation since last year. Ben’s and James’s vision had become a reality. Congratulations to everyone involved. There are so many other schools who want to be part of Farm My School, and I hope that we will see the program grow.