Growing their own

Marmaton Valley students promote healthy eating through horticulture. Much of the district's fresh produce is grown in the high school agriculture department's greenhouse. Ag students are even raising chickens for eggs to source as much local food as possible.

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January 15, 2024 - 3:33 PM

Students at Marmaton Valley High School harvest fresh produce to be used in the district’s meals. Courtesy photo

Students at Marmaton Valley USD 256 are learning, quite literally, that you reap what you sow.

The district is spearheading an effort to promote resourceful and healthy eating as part of its curriculum. According to Superintendent Kim Ensminger, much of the district’s fresh produce is grown in the high school’s agriculture department’s greenhouse. “It is all freshly grown and is student-centered as part of the horticulture class,” she said.

While Iola and other districts in the area utilize food services like OPAA, Marmaton Valley works independently of any contract food service to feed students each day. “We do receive some foods through wholesale distributors like Sysco,” Ensminger clarified. However, the district’s goal is to locally source as much of each meal’s ingredients as possible. 

This involves purchasing protein from local farms and baking homemade rolls and bread. The agriculture department has even ventured into raising chickens for eggs, which means fresh eggs are now featured in students’ meals.

IN 2019, USD 256 made a substantial addition that helped launch the mission of self-sustainability: a 650-gallon aquaponics system. Aquaponics, the combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (the soilless growing of plants), creates an environmentally friendly way to grow crops and fish together in one integrated system. 

“The fish fertilize the water, so we don’t have to add anything,” explained Agriculture Instructor Jacque Gabbert. “Sometimes, we harvest the fish as well.”

The aquaponics system starts with water being pumped into the float bed, where bubbling stones oxygenate the water beneath styrofoam sheets. Holes filled with rockwool secure the plants. The water then flows to the fish tank, housing the fish, before passing through a clarifier for cleaning.

The journey concludes in the media bed, filled with clay pebbles, before the water is siphoned back to the sump pump tank — completing the sustainable cycle. The students feed the fish and, on a weekly basis, check the levels of the pH, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, eC and dissolved oxygen.

Agriculture students at Marmaton Valley USD 256 bring harvested herbs to the cafeteria to be used in that day’s meals. Pictured are Lane Storrer, Brayden Lawson, Jaedon Granere, Ryan Pugh, Jakob Gardner, Emily Robertson, Emilio Peon, Shelby Sprague, and Sophia Heim. Photo by Sarah Haney / Iola Register

ONCE HARVESTED, the results of students’ work begin to take form. Fresh, homegrown lettuce will be on the salad bar. And “we have homemade breakfast burritos we’ll be using the eggs in,” said Food Director Trista McVey.

On the day this reporter visited, cafeteria staff were making pesto and tomato basil soup with fresh herbs. McVey noted they can make various dishes from the herbs; the dill would be used in crab, potato, and cucumber salads. Students produce enough fresh food to supply the salad bar with different items daily.

Agriculture student Lane Storrer presents cook Melissa Fewins with basil that was harvested by students that morning. Photo by Sarah Haney

The district recently applied for a state grant to create a hydroponic farm classroom. Ten school districts in southeast Kansas were selected to receive a hydroponic farm similar to the ones in operation at Leafy Green Farms in Pittsburg, the first vertical hydroponic farm in Kansas.

Marmaton Valley USD 256 wasn’t one of them.

Even still, Ensminger sees a healthy and sustainable future for the district. 

“We are constantly striving to prepare food with the freshest ingredients for our students,” said Ensminger. “And to make it a valuable educational tool in the process.”

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