Growing Together - Garden Program, Fayette County, WV

Youth in Fayette County have high rates of high school dropout, obesity, diabetes, and little awareness of conservation issues. Youth and families are also food insecure, made worse by high rates of poverty. To add to food insecurity in Fayette County, the bulk of the food consumed is produced outside of West Virginia, with little public awareness of the means by which food is produced. Public high school students in Fayette County have a high dropout rate of 19% of all teenagers; nearly one in five students drop out of high school. Poor academic performance has led the State Board of Education perform an in-depth review of some area high schools, including Mount Hope High School. According to the West Virginia Health and Human Resources, youth of Fayette County also have rates of obesity and diabetes, among other health issues, that are higher than the West Virginia state average, and much higher than the national average. These problems are compounded by the fact that 33.3% of all Fayette County children are below the poverty line, with 63.5% of Fayette County public school students approved for the free- or reduced-lunch program. In low income groups, citizens typically have limited access to resources to address these problems. Youth garden education programs have been demonstrated to be a highly successful method to address these issues and meet our goals. In the National Gardening Association’s 2009 evaluation of over a hundred youth garden projects, a whopping 96% of projects surveyed reported improved environmental attitudes. Also, 77% of youth participants had improvements in their nutritional attitudes after one growing season. The survey also showed that gardens are also a successful means with which to teach leadership and teamwork, with a 89% improvement in self confidence, 87% improvement in social skills, and an 85% improvement in leadership skills. Interestingly, garden projects also reported a 63% improvement in scholastic achievement, 81% improvement in volunteerism, and a 92% improvement in community spirit. In November 2009, a survey of West Virginia agricultural and food distribution professionals revealed that there is far more demand for locally grown foods than there is a consistent supply. A report from the West Virginia Center for Economic Options called for more and higher quality educational programs to teach youth how to make a lucrative profession of growing food in West Virginia. Encouraging more youth to consider agriculture as a career will give students a future profession to strive towards, increase access to fresh, healthy foods in West Virginia, and allow them learn skills of teamwork and leadership. This project aims to teach the youth of Fayette County that these problems are directly related to a food system that relies heavily on resource consumption and, in turn, environmental degradation. The means by which most people of Fayette County obtain their food results in excessive petroleum consumption—for transportation and industrial agriculture farms—thereby resulting tremendous greenhouse gas emissions. The prominent agricultural practices supporting the current food system demand widespread use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that degrade soil, and pollute water sources. Excessive use of chemicals on large farms or gardens also inhibits the ecological environment in which beneficial plants and insects—such as lady bugs, which kill aphids, and clover, which naturally adds nitrogen to soil—may assist in healthy crop growth. Eliminating wasteful resource consumption through responsible, environmentally friendly agriculture practices can prevent much of the degradation caused by conventional farming, as well as promote healthy lifestyles among the underserved and vulnerable subpopulations of Fayette County.