Watering cucumbers in class and picking tomatoes at home or in the office. Thanks to the projects of Ackerdemia, this is the everyday life of many children and adults.
Where do tomatoes come from (Solanum lycopersicum) actually here and are potatoes(Solanum tuberosum) really all yellow and oval? Many children (but also adults) have lost touch with food and nature. The non-profit association Ackerdemia is therefore campaigning for more appreciation for nature and food with a variety of programs and projects. Julia Krebs, the co-founder of Ackerdemia, reveals in a Plantura interview how Ackerdemia works, how you can participate and how you can motivate your whole family to garden.
If you had to summarize in three sentences what Ackerdemia is and does, how would you put it?
Our goal is to educate a generation that knows what it is eating. We want to enable more appreciation for nature and food and we achieve this with our various projects. It is important to us to show people how nice it is to deal with food.
The main thing is to teach children how to grow their own food, right?
We started with the GemüseAckerdemie, an educational program for schools and day-care centers. The children grow vegetables with us and experience where our food comes from and how much effort it takes, for example, to get one carrot grows. In addition, we now also have projects such as the AckerPause, during which we bring vegetable patches into the office and thus promote team spirit and the working atmosphere.
How did you come up with the idea of starting Ackerdemia?
Our founder Christoph Schmitz had the idea. He comes from a farm in the Rhineland. His sister is a teacher and often brought school classes to the farm where they learned in a potato seminar that french fries are made from potatoes. But where exactly the potato itself comes from and what is behind it, you cannot experience that in just one day on the farm. Christoph then thought that there had to be a possibility, like the pupils, the whole growing season of a vegetable get to know: Instead of taking the children to the field, he wanted the field and vegetable growing in the schools and with the children bring to. On his farm, he first tested this with his sister and a school class. The children were so enthusiastic and passionate about it that they even came on Saturdays and grew vegetables. And so the idea started rolling.
Are the children enthusiastic about it right from the start?
At first, many are a bit skeptical and don't want to get their hands dirty. But then curiosity develops and they notice how much fun it is to work in the field. The children also love to have part of their lessons outside of the mostly theoretical school material. You can move around and get to grips with reality in a practical way.
Do the children have previous knowledge? Or does the purple cow phenomenon really exist?
Fortunately, I have never heard of the children thinking that cows are purple. But we can prove everywhere that the children really learn a lot - this is also shown by our annual impact report. We are seeing a tremendous growth in knowledge about the different types of vegetables and their cultivation. I myself grew up in the big city and it was more and more important to me to offer the program for the city children, because, in my opinion, they have even less contact with agriculture and thus the origin of our food to have. But even many children from the country no longer know where the vegetables actually come from. So it cannot be said in general how much prior knowledge is there.
How many daycare centers and schools are you already at?
We are now at 350 AckerSchulen and almost 130 AckerKitas. There are also almost 80 vegetable classes. The Vegetable Class is an indoor program in which the students grow vegetables in beds developed by us for 20 weeks.
What is your vision at Ackerdemia?
Ackerdemia is passion - and we work with it every day to enable children and young people, but also adults, very special experiences around food! We want to get people excited about vegetable growing and thereby strengthen their awareness of nature and food, as well as healthy eating. Experiencing something for yourself can achieve so much more than a thousand words and is also a lot of fun!
Growing vegetables for private individuals is your latest project. What is that called exactly and what is the idea?
The project is called Black Turtle - old varieties for young vegetables. ˈBlack Turtleˈ is an old vegetable variety, a black bean, and we named the new project after it, as it is about the almost forgotten varieties. The project is funded by the Ministry of the Environment. For the idea behind it, I have to give you a little retrospective: Often the children come with a lot Enthusiasm from the field to school or daycare home and tell the parents about theirs there Experiences. However, some of them lack the understanding and knowledge of how to grow vegetables at home. That is why we have always found the idea of bringing the vegetable farming project to families very interesting. In the end, our goal is to make a difference to the people who take part in our program.
How long has the Black Turtle project existed?
The Black Turtle pilot project started this year with 450 interested households from all over Germany. During the year we sent all participants two seed sets with old vegetables. We accompany you throughout the season with weekly information and video tutorials on the Cultivation that shows you how to do it in your own garden or on the balcony in a very uncomplicated way and with a lot fun To grow vegetables can - but not just any vegetable, but old varieties. This combination of imparting practical cultivation knowledge and education on the subject of old varieties is super exciting!
What do you think families lack in order to grow their own vegetables at home?
That's a good question. Next week we have an event to which we have invited our participants to find out exactly - we are very excited. So far I only have my own guess as to what the reasons might be. The question is, how do you even start? Many are overwhelmed by all the possibilities and methods right at the start, so that they give up before they have even started. Our goal is therefore to make it as easy as possible for people and to show them that everyone can do it. Growing vegetables should be fun, and even if things fail, people should stay curious and ask themselves or us why something didn't work out.
Finally, I have a direct question for our readers: What would you recommend if you want to motivate your children to garden with you?
I would choose vegetables that are as simple as possible and that the children enjoy. One that you can put straight from the plant into your mouth, like tomatoes or carrots. Also relatively grow fast it should be so that the children do not become too impatient and lose the fun of gardening. Otherwise, I would suggest just getting started, because you can't really go wrong. Children are totally curious about that.
Who more to Farm demia and Black Turtle want to find out, you can find all the information here.