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Healthy Eating: Why is Farm-to-Table Important?
Farm Manager & Educator Michael Sibalski Breaks Down the Benefits of Farm-to-Table Dining
Michael Sibalski, Farm Manager & Educator
Farm-to-table dining is embedded in the Midland experience, providing students and faculty with healthy, farm-fresh foods. Midland’s Farm Manager and Educator, Michael Sibalski, shares about the farm-to-table movement and its many benefits.
What is the Farm-to-Table Movement?
At its roots, farm-to-table is about connection to place, honoring the work of farmers, and creating communities that are directly involved in their local food system. The farm-to-table movement began in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, sparked by concerns over a rapidly growing industrialized food system and its impacts on the environment, farmworkers, and communities. Pioneers like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, who provided the components for Midland’s wood-fired pizza oven on the farm, and countless farmers championed local sourcing, emphasizing the importance of fresh, seasonal, and high-quality ingredients from nearby farms. This movement continues today on farms across the country at farmers’ markets, community gardens, and in backyards where people are actively choosing to engage with their local food system.
The Values of Farm-to-Table
Several core values drive the farm-to-table movement, and we embrace these values as part of the Midland farm and garden program.
- Freshness: Ingredients are sourced locally, often harvested at peak ripeness, ensuring superior taste and quality.
- Sustainability: Practices support environmentally friendly farming practices, reducing carbon footprints and minimizing waste.
- Local Economy Support: Promotion of local farmers and producers to strengthen regional food systems.
- Seasonality: Encouragement of eating what’s in season, which can lead to more flavorful and diverse meals.
- Transparency: Direct connections between producers and consumers, allowing for greater trust and understanding of food origins.
- Reduced Food Miles: Minimization of the distance food travels, lowering transportation-related emissions and energy consumption.
- Healthier Eating: Focus on fresh, minimally processed ingredients that are often more nutritious and free from harmful chemicals or preservatives.
Plate piled high with farm-fresh food during Midland’s New Parent Luncheon
Benefits of Farm-to-Table Dining
There are many benefits to farm-to-table eating, most of which are linked to the relationship between farmers and their customers and their proximity to one another. We see these benefits reflected in our health, the health of our communities, and the environment as a result of an increased diversity of crops, the care and stewardship of soils, and the educational value for consumers and, in our case, the Midland community.
Crate of organic red and yellow peppers from the Midland farm
Encourages Food Diversity
When farmers and their customers interact one-on-one, at a farmers’ market or at the loading dock of a restaurant or kitchen there is bound to be a discussion about food; an exploration of flavor, appearance, freshness etc. This collaboration can lead to farmers and chefs exploring new crop varieties to meet the needs of customers and a cycle of direct feedback about the qualities of those crop selections. This co-creative process encourages diversity on farms, exposing customers to new foods that are often vacant from the grocery store shelves.
Increase of Nutrients
One of the main values of the farm-to-table movement is sustainability, and when we talk about sustainability in agriculture, we are talking about soil. Farmers who are involved in direct sales and local food systems are incentivized (and are often intrinsically motivated) to grow nutrient-dense, delicious crops because we all love flavorful food. To do this, they must care for the soil. The saying in organic agriculture is “feed the soil, not the plant.” When properly “fed” and balanced with organic matter (compost/cover crops) and mineral supplements, soils grow healthier over time, producing healthy crops and subsequently healthy humans. Without care for the soil no farm or community can be successful in the long haul.
Inspires Healthy Habits
Our students are exposed to entire farms’ worth of snacks. The Midland strawberry is a memory that many students share, as well as a freshly dug carrot or pineapple guava plucked off the tree late in November. Students graze through the garden beds, eating as they go, and in doing so, open up to eating foods that they might never want to eat outside of this place. Many students have commented that they had never liked tomatoes before Midland and that after eating them here, they have come to love them.
The Importance of Organic Food in School
Our farm is certified organic by California Certified Organic Farms (CCOF) as well as certified by the Real Organic Project, a third-party certifier that is aiming to strengthen the organic label. What does this mean? It means that we steward the land that we are growing on, that we think beyond our crops, and that we consider our ecosystem. When we engage students in growing the food for their community we are teaching them that they are part of an ecosystem and that they can be responsible contributors to it. The benefits of whole foods are essential for our health and the health of our students. Food grown in healthy soils has more of the minerals and nutrients that young people need than would be found in soils that are exploited. When young people have access to nutrient-dense meals that are made with minimally processed foods they are able to meet the needs of their developing minds and as a result are more effectively equipped to engage as students.
Students in the fields working on the farm
Midland’s Farm-to-Table Dining Experience
At Midland, farm-to-table eating is a part of our culture. Students have been involved in growing food for their peers and the greater community for over 20 years, and from 2024 onward, each student who graduates from Midland will have spent at least one season on the farm learning the art and science of growing their food; planting, tending to, harvesting, and delivering our nutrient-dense organic produce to Stillman Dining Hall. During their time on the farm, students not only learn how to grow their food, they learn about how to work together to achieve a shared goal, how to care for their community, how to be stewards of the ecosystems of which they are a part.
Interested to learn more about Midland’s farm-to-table program? Actively applying students are encouraged to book a Shadow Day which includes a campus tour, morning classes, and a farm-fresh lunch.
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