ELLENVILLE – With the recent announcement of federal funding going toward an agribusiness corridor in Ulster County, there seems to be a renewed emphasis on all things agricultural in our area. That's why Susan Perrin, executive director of the Rondout Valley Growers Association, is looking to bring agriculture-based programming to schools around the area.

The RVGA currently has an application for a Food Security grant before the USDA, which would allow the organization to coordinate a program to make locally grown food available in schools, as well as to bring an agriculture-focused curriculum to students, including class-gardens, that would engage them in various areas of education — at no cost to the districts.

"It's proven that if your kids are eating healthy food, they learn better," says Perrin, who can list a litany of benefits that building stronger ties between schools and agriculture can bring. "It helps in our food security if we are producing food that is being served in our schools. Additionally, it helps local farmers if that's a market that's opened up to them in the school districts. What I think is most important is that it connects kids with where they're food comes from and our agricultural history. And if we don't excite future generations to be farmers, we're not going to have farmers."

An agriculture-based curriculum can offer students new ways of learning fundamentals, ranging from the sciences to math and English, not to mention lessons in local history of the rural region. Best of all, though, says Perrin, getting hands-on experience with gardening can give young people a better perspective of where their food comes from.

"When the kids are out there planting seeds and measuring their growth, estimating how long it's going to take until something germinates, estimating how much yield you're going to get from this —" she says, "that's all math, but they're also learning, 'wow, that takes a lot of work to grow the food that I'm eating.' That's a whole different take on economics, culture, [and] food production."

Right now, Perrin has her fingers crossed about whether the grant will come through, and she's been told that it will be decided in July. In order to make a better case to the USDA, she has sought letters of support from the three major school districts in the area, receiving them from Rondout Valley and Kingston School Districts. The Ellenville Central School District couldn't commit to supporting the program until there was more information about the program available. Perrin is hoping that parents around the district will write letters to the school board supporting the RVGA's efforts to bring this kind of programming to Ellenville. And, of course, the more support the program gets, the better the chances are that the grant will be approved.

"When you get to the higher grades…then you're really getting some thoughts in their heads about sustainability, economy, and the environment," says Perrin about the program's potential to bring back something that's been lost in recent years. "All of this was sort of innate 100 years ago, but it's not anymore."