Field-to-fork programs can grow careers
It’s that time of year when the seeds of the future are being sown for senior high school students. Applications for college and university programs are around the corner.
The experience can be both exciting and daunting. Behind every option and choice, students wonder, “Can I study something I enjoy?” and “Will it lead me to a career?”
Mark has lived his passion every day of his working life in the horticultural profession: the original “green” industry. And Ben notes that gardening is changing, with the caveat: “People will always have to eat, dad.” Gardening and food really have become interwoven.
For prospective horticulture students, schools such as the University of Guelph, Niagara Parks School of Horticulture, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Olds College in Calgary and University of British Columbia have turned out some of Canada’s best graduates over the decades.
And there are a growing number of post-secondary programs that have taken advantage of the changing landscape in the landscaping — and horticulture — industry in recent years.
Centre for Food: Durham College has tapped into the latest trends, particularly those bringing food and horticulture together. At the W. Galen Weston Centre for Food, in Whitby, Shane Jones is the program co-ordinator for horticulture in the food and farming programs. Shane was called upon by college president Don Lovisa when he first envisioned field-to-fork teaching seven years ago — it led to the establishment of the Centre for Food in 2013. Shane was chosen for his experience in agriculture, most recently bringing food gardens to schools with the Toronto District School Board.
They started the on the former Cadbury chocolate factory’s industrial grounds, “which is the most challenging to start with when trying to grow,” Jones said about where, today, 60 students from the two horticulture programs oversee the on-campus market garden. A former industrial site was certainly not what we saw when we dropped by recently, but rather a flourishing market garden that supplies fresh produce to Bistro ’67, the on-campus restaurant staffed by students from the college’s culinary program.
The Centre for Food also keeps an eye on the outside community: Bistro ’67 welcomes the public. Jones’s hope for the campus garden is to sell fresh produce direct to the community, as well.
“Students come from a broad range of backgrounds, city and rural, some are right out of high school and others are mature,” says Jones, adding that many graduates go on to just as wide a range of careers, including “greenhouses, golf courses, landscaping, as well as food production, processing and quality control.”
For those who graduate to become farmers or market gardeners, the school has allotted property to incubate graduate businesses.
Future of gardening: In Langley, B.C., the Institute for Sustainable Horticulture, at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, has been confronting the environmental challenges to our green profession since 2004. Some of the Institute’s research includes new microbial biocontrol products for insects and disease in horticultural crops, clean energy options for greenhouses, sustainable cropping systems as well as our personal favourite: bug gardens promoting habitats for beneficial insects.
“My bar for our research is, will it help the horticulture and agriculture industries be more sustain- able?” institute director Deborah Henderson says.
Five programs run the gamut of green professions: environmental protection technology, horticulture, plant health, sustainable agriculture and urban ecosystems.
Capstone, or senior projects, internships and co-op terms are a handful of ways that students get directly involved in the institute’s leading-edge research.
“My biggest problem is that our students keep getting hired away by our industry partners,” Henderson says, laughing.
Industry and academia have taken note: there has never been a generation so concerned with balancing their conscience with life and career goals and, ultimately, to make a positive difference. Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster, tree advocate and holds the Order of Canada. His son Ben is a fourth-generation urban gardener and graduate of University of Guelph and Dalhousie University in Halifax. Follow them at markcullen.com, @markcullengardening, on Facebook and bi-weekly on Global TV’s Morning Show.