Wisconsin school farms seek to address food insecurity
The Real CSI Miami New series Wednesday, June 26th on CBS. Roughly one in five children in the US don't get enough to eat each day. In tonight's Eye in America, we take a look at an innovative method that sets up farms inside schools just down the hall from the students who need it most, Here's CB S S Roxana Saberi at Ashwabanon High School near Green Bay, WI Past the tater tots and the fried chicken sandwiches, you'll find something much fresher. You get a bite of the salad. It's just amazing. I eat it every day at school. So fresh. Do you know where it comes from? No idea. It was grown and picked just down the hallway. Fresh food can be grown easily in Wisconsin in the middle of the winter, and there's no soil insight. This indoor hydroponic garden relies on circulating water, special nutrients and around the clock light from LED's. We've done tomatoes, beans, sugar snap peas, adding up to around 850 lbs of produce a month. Nutrition Coordinator Caitlin Tarainen says that's enough to feed up to 2000 students throughout the district. A lot of our kids aren't exposed to fresh foods at home just because it's financially hard for the families to purchase those kind of things. Is this the only place where they're getting fresh vegetables? It may be absolutely. It sets up in about 45 minutes. The system stemmed from the imagination of Wisconsin native Alex Tyke. Trained as an opera singer, he got into rooftop gardening in New York City between gigs. They had squash growing right in the middle of Bushwick. Brooklyn then decided to use what he'd learned to start a company called Fork Farms to help people grow their own food. Food is already having to travel further and further to get from seed to plate. Our food system is failing us. Which is why he sees this 2500 year old technique as the water and land efficient farming of the future. And with nearly one out of every eight American households facing food insecurity, tying says units like his can get people fresh food faster. It's probably some of the best lettuce I've ever eaten. Mark Gerock got grants to buy two of the $5000 devices for the food bank he runs near Milwaukee. As the cost of food continue to rise, that becomes more valuable than anything else. If you have the opportunity to have fresh produce on the table versus something canned or processed or nothing at all, how much better is life for you? And that's what we try to do. We try to make life better. So did some plants die along? Yeah, a lot. A lot. Yes, a lot. In Milwaukee Public Schools, where school officials say more than 80% of students are economically disadvantaged, 80 flex farms have sprouted. That's where it gets really exciting because now you have a community of people that are focused on doing this together, and they're learning from each other. And he says they're planting a healthier.