Farm to table is usually associated with high-end or trendy restaurants and cafes. But now, the kids at the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester will be able to follow their food's entire journey from planting to their cafeteria, while encompassing a distance of no more than about 20 feet.
Farm to table operations are often praised for having a smaller carbon footprint, with food having a shorter trip between the producer and consumer. Charles Luster, Worcester teacher and founder of 2Gether We Eat, a nonprofit program that donates 100% of the food it grows to the community, may have broken a record, using hydroponics to grow produce indoors, right in the cafeteria.
“All a plant really is,” Luster explained, “is nutrients, oxygen and sunlight.” This technique has allowed Luster to take a new approach to community farms and address the issue of food insecurity in low-income neighborhoods.
2Gether We Eat will kick off a program March 29 to teach 12- to 14-year-olds how to hydroponically grow healthy foods at the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester. The facility will be inside the cafeteria so, “kids can see it go from seed to table,” Luster explained, and there are 10 kids already signed up.
The kids will learn what it means to germinate the seed in water, skipping the soil and growing crops directly in nutrient-rich water. Overall, the process uses as much as 70% less water than soil farming, Luster said.
There is the capability to have more than 130 plants growing, starting with lettuce, and they plan to survey the kids further down the line, to see what they want to grow.
Read the complete article at www.eu.worcestermag.com.