Gardening: as important as language or maths!
Many children are over-weight and, according to Harvey (2006) and Myhill, we are all under-nourished. The main deficit foods are vegetables and fruit. If children grow these themselves they are more likely to eat them. Grown well and eaten fresh, garden crops can be superior to any from a shop.
A well planned and managed, attractive and productive garden will give children an enjoyable experience. Eating tasty food they have grown is a good foundation for lifelong eating habits. Children will then be more likely to continue gardening as adults, with long term health benefits, allowing gardening to be continued into old age. This is good for mental health too. The gardener is productive and valued.
Gardening has positive effects on children’s work in class. We all need a balance between work which is sedentary and mentally demanding and work which is not only physical but materially productive. Modern life provides few opportunities for the latter.
School gardening provides good opportunities for developing social and co-operative skills.
References
Harvey, G. (2006) We Want Real Food
Myhill, S. www.drmyhill.co.uk (Nutrition, vitamins, minerals and diets)
Environmental benefits of gardening
The more food that is grown in gardens, the less that needs to be bought. This means less transport, packaging and rubbish. Each square metre of garden ‘frees’ more than that area elsewhere: -
a) because of reduced demand for infrastructure needed for processing, transport and retailing and
b) because a garden can be more productive than a farm by using ‘tighter’ rotations and inter- and catch-cropping. Gardening need use no fossil fuel energy.
Strategic and global considerations
The UN Millennium Declaration revealed that an area the size of Canada and the USA is already affected by soil degradation and each year 20 million hectares of agricultural land are lost through severe degradation and urban development. While population continues to increase, climate change will reduce global food production. Depending on imported food is very unwise. Hunger could be a bigger problem than obesity within our children’s lifetime.
Teaching food-growing skills to children could lay the foundations of a lifelong interest and if it eventually results in millions of gardens being brought into productive use, that has to be a good thing.