BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — A new season is coming to the Edible Schoolyard Kern County.
“Kern County has such a compelling case for the need for edible education, specifically around food literacy.” said Dylan Wilson, the Executive Director of the Edible Schoolyard. He say’s that given Kern County’s prominent role in the agricultural industry it should be a thriving garden for it’s residents. But it's not.
“We’re facing a huge challenge of having food insecure communities, while we’re one of the top producing food counties in the country.”
He says this is why it’s important for the community to support programs that help teach sustainable living and food security. Over the years, the Edible Schoolyard has been able to do that with the help of it’s greenhouse.
“Since day one of our program starting, through the community, for our own purposes, for our annual plant sale.”
Soon the greenhouse will be able to do more — thanks to a $100,00 dollar grant from Bank of America. The grant will fund the construction of a new state of art greenhouse, complete with a new automated irrigation system to recycle and reduce water use, solar panels to provide climate control, and expansion of the greenhouse to over double its size.
“Part of this new greenhouse is were going to be able to enhance the programming that we have here at the edible schoolyard, with the educational models. We’ll also be able to create sustainable solutions for food security in the region by providing starts and transplants for a network of gardens that are focused on feeding the community.”
Demolition of the existing greenhouse is underway. Construction on the new greenhouse is set to begin shortly and is expected to be completed by January 2023.
