A pilot project to run a self-sustainable farm for Bellarine Secondary College is set to be launched early next month.
Farm My School was initially created by James McLennan and Ben Shaw about four years ago as a way to transform unused school land at the college into regenerative market gardens.
The project has escalated to the point where the co-founders employ a farmer and the produce is offered as food boxes to parents and staff and provides fresh produce to the school’s Drysdale campus canteen and food tech classes.
The pilot project will run with help from Bellarine Community Health Network and will support classes in agriculture, science and geography.
Farmer Nina Breidahl is employed four days a week.
Mr McLennan and Mr Shaw have been inundated with requests from other schools to do something similar, but said they want to get the pilot project at Bellarine Secondary right first.
School principal Wayne Johannsen said the farm was “challenging kids’ perceptions of what they are eating”.
It’s debatable whether the campus stadium is more popular on Wednesday nights for its basketball or the school’s farmers market. The market sells produce direct from the school farm to the public.
“Some people turned up asking where the basketball stadium was but that they were only here for the vegies,” Mr Johannsen said.
Mr Johannsen said the school’s food classes were sourcing vegetables through their own farm rather than through the major supermarkets.
“Students go home and say ‘I can cook dinner because I made it with a recipe today with vegetables from our garden’,” he said.
Mr Johannsen said the farm was an equal three-way partnership between the school, Bellarine Community Health and Farm My School.
“We’ve had such support all over,” he said.
“We met with Barwon Water and they’ve made some in-kind donations already in terms of irrigation. Dirt Shift Excavations Moolap are donating time and machinery to sculpt the land around it.”
The project will launch with a festival on April 6, with local music, guest speakers and food trucks.
