University City High School established the first FFA chapter in St. Louis County early this year as the next step toward state approval for the school’s agriculture program. District officials said the chapter will give students access to competitions, leadership events and industry connections in urban agriculture.
There's no other state-approved career and technical education program in agriculture in St. Louis or St. Louis County. Superintendent Sharonica Hardin-Bartley said students can earn college credit in urban agriculture and industry credentials through Fresh Harvest 365, a St. Louis-based company that builds hydroponic “smart farming” systems in dense neighborhoods.
Hardin-Bartley said she hopes the FFA chapter will introduce more career pathways to students interested in bringing sustainable farming to urban food deserts.
“(We want) to provide a solid resource for the community that feels a need, and not to mention the nutritional value of having urban farming in the urban core,” Hardin-Bartley said.
The school partnered with Fresh Harvest 365 to build a hydroponic farm in an upcycled shipping container on school grounds, where students learn about plant nursery and etymology. Agriculture teacher and FFA advisor Pamela Lester said it can produce the same amount of food as several acres of farmland.
“When people think ‘agriculture’, they think farmland and animals, none of which we have,” Lester said. “People think that (agriculture) is only for rural places, and that's completely not true."
Lester said she hopes to give students a vocabulary to solve problems in careers across the agriculture industry.
“They will know how to sow the seeds, how long the process takes, how to adjust lighting, how to adjust the temperature, how to get the optimal growth for the different plants,” Lester said. “Almost anything that a student wants to do, they can do related to this container.”
Lester said leadership opportunities through the National FFA Organization will give students entrepreneurial skills to bring the plants they grow into the community. Since the newborn chapter still has a lot of building and fundraising to do, Lester said she doesn’t know yet what that will look like. She said it might include giving produce to other students in the district, giving families seeds to grow their own gardens or opening a booth at the farmer’s market. She said she hopes to give students interested in business, advertising and marketing leadership roles in the chapter’s public-facing operations.
“We’re small but mighty,” Lester said. “We believe that this is just the beginning, and we expect our FFA chapter to continue to grow.”
For now, Lester said students are propagating plants to prepare for a plant sale in the coming months and training to lead agriculture lessons at Jackson Park Elementary School across the street.
