BBC; Cheese is from plants, chips grow on trees!

A survey reported by the BBC shows an alarming lack of food knowledge. But hardly surprising when the modern food industry and retailers have separated consumer from producer. Why should a child know whether potatoes are grown underground or up a tree when they rarely see food production or are not taught about food at school?

Most of the fields around me at the moment are either yellow with oil seed rape or green with wheat, and look nothing like the food on my plate. I expect most goes to feeding animals in intensive ‘factory’ farms, also hidden from the consumer.

It seems unlikely that we will return to the days when small mixed farms surrounded housing, so bringing food growing and cooking in to the curriculum, like the school in the report, is a fantastic idea.

The school project we ran showed how enthused children are when given the opportunity to learn and interact with growing and cooking food. After all, we eat 3 times a day and have the primal urge of hunger.

So Victorian food for History, designing food labels for Art, seed rates for Maths, growing plants for Biology, must make each subject more relevant and easier to learn. Add to this the incentive of making some money by selling any excess food through BigBarn’s Crop for the Shop scheme, and we may see the next generation enjoying healthier food and saving the NHS a fortune. Perhaps even see a new generation of farmers?