On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes takes an inside look at innovative local efforts to teach young people through urban agriculture. Our guest is Brian Emerson of Rooted, a local nonprofit developing community connections through agriculture and food access. 

Emerson comes from a long line of growers and says a lot of gardening is about paying attention. When he moved to Madison he got a plot at the Eagle Heights community garden where he learned from the international students and their families about growing in all kinds of ways. He’s built a career around teaching others how to grow their own food for their families and for their communities. 

At the Madison School Farm, Emerson runs programs for local schools, primarily field trips at the farm. Students get a full sensory experience of the garden, help out with garden chores, and cook a meal together. He says that kids love working with soil and that this year he’s had a 90% success rate at getting kids to eat raw okra. They also gain valuable social-emotional skills from working together in the garden. He wants to partner with more school districts and create more opportunities and connect more small farms to grow food for schools.

Emerson also works at the Grow Academy, a juvenile facility part of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He shows the kids in the program about how to read a seed packet and troubleshoot common gardening issues in order to foster a sense of peace and personal agency. 

Brian Emerson is the Director of Urban Agriculture Education at Rooted. He is a native of Cedar Rapids and now is a Northside Madison resident. After graduating from the University of Iowa he worked with the USDA-NRCS on various mapping and watershed projects. Since 2004 he has been with the UW Madison trialing fruits, flowers, and veggies. Most recently, he served as Trial Manager for the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative in the Urban and Regional Food Systems program. In his free time, Brian works in his community coaching, teaching horticulture, and running a small urban farm.

Featured image of urban agriculture via Rawpixel.

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