Tag Archives: KCC Urban Farm

Farm-to-Table in the US

 

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KCC Urban Farm students, Brooklyn

A great article from the NY Times about the growth of “Agritopia” in the US. Farm-to-Table Living Takes Root talks about the growth of residential neighborhoods that, instead of being built around golf clubs, swimming pools or tennis courts, have a central focus on farming. While this movement is still in its infancy (and with many bugs to work out), the idea of communities coming together through shared interest of farming is wonderful…especially for us at KCC Urban Farm!

The KCC Urban Farm host tastings, events, courses and supports class visits. Find out more information by visiting our home on this blog or finding us on facebook.  

KCC Continuing Education Open House

Come to Kingsborough’s Office of Continuing Education Open House on Tuesday, March 11th at 6:30pm. In addition to hearing all about Continuing Education’s many offerings, you’ll also get information about CEWD training programs like CUNY CareerPATH, the Northeast Resiliency Consortium and Project Rise, as well as KCC Urban Farm and GIS classes.

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Farming for NYC College Students, amNewYork

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Students at KCC Urban Farm. Brooklyn, NY.

KCC Urban Farm manager, Silvia Torres, was just featured in an amNY article about farming in the city.

“Our goal is to help students understand that something called a food system exists, and that they have the power to make choices that impact both the environment and their health,” Torres says.

Read about what KCC Urban Farm and other farms in the city are doing to encourage this kind of hands-on learning.

Nutrition Education

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Tomato harvest KCC Urban Farm, summer 2013

Great news from the USDA. A study on SNAP-Education finds that nutrition education programs can lead to healthier food choices by participants. The study followed programs in 3 US states (Michigan, Iowa and Kentucky) that were designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in children and seniors. Two out of the 3 programs showed significant increases of at-home fruit/vegetable consumption and all programs showed greater participation appreciation towards healthier food options. You can read more about this study here. 

At the KCC Urban Farm in Brooklyn, we encourage not only healthy eating, but also a more holistic understanding of larger food systems. Our demonstrations include side-by-side comparisons of conventional vs. farm-grown fruits/vegetables and a hands-on look at what happens to food we throw away (yay compost!). Kingsborough’s Culinary Arts program even benefits from our ultra-local harvests. We hope to have a Farm-integrated nutrition program on campus in the future, so stay tuned. 

 

Wrapping up a great season

Season extension: we’re still growing
2013 was a productive season at KCC Urban Farm. Despite smaller growing area due to construction, we grew over 3,000 lbs of fresh produce, all of which went to the KCC community!

While the weather is getting cold outside, it’s still a few degrees warmer in the hoop house, where we’ll be growing cold hardy crops through the winter.

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Working with KCC Reads

Food Day at KCC Urban Farm

Food Day at KCC Urban Farm


KCC Urban Farm has been working intimately with KCC Reads, since this year’s book, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, is all about our food system. We co-hosted an event on Food Day, a national celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainably produced food, that brought over a hundred students to the farm. We led tours of the farm and discussions about our food system for dozens of classes that are reading the book, and produced a toolkit of resources for faculty who are teaching about food and farming.

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