FIU’s Organic Garden, which is located at Modesto A. Maidique Campus and run by FIU students and faculty/staff, was named a “People’s Garden” on April 9 by Vladimir Diaz, a USDA local official.
The special recognition is accorded to community gardens across the United States, an initiative started by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last year to promote sustainable, healthy and local community food production in the country.
Thanks to the FIU Garden Club, student leaders and a 2008 grant from the USDA NIFA Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Grant, the Organic Garden at FIU is the first People’s Garden on any university campus in South Florida.
“If you haven’t visited the garden lately, please do,” said associate professor Mahadev Bhat. “It looks great now with the onset of the spring weather.”
The Miami Herald Neighbors section recently ran an article about the garden and those who maintain it. For more on the garden, check out Doug Garland’s video below.
The Peoples Garden from Doug Garland on Vimeo.
The FIU Organic Garden from Doug Garland on Vimeo.
This film by Sri Douglas Garland reflects the maiden effort of Professor Mahadev Bhat's students at FIU is laudable and should serve as an unique model for the rest of the Universities aiming at Greening to emulate. I appreciate the use of solar power, cultivating many plants including those from the tropics like basil as also taiwanese cabbage and supporting the local producers by providing space for them to sell to FIU faculty and student fraternity.
Perhaps this garden will serve as a partial panacea to the major health problem faced by developed world – obesity. If people spend more time in eating far less processed food and far more fresh food, this in itself will involve use of their own labor, which means involvement in domestic work such as cooking, which means mincing with members of family, and in the process eat the right fiber content from fresh food. In fact coming from India, whenever I hear seminars on value chain or food chain I get allergic to that idea since food chain or value chain necessarily and largely means processed food which implies either use of salt or sugar (at least) for processing as they serve as preservatives, and are not healthy and are unsustainable. It is rare that value chain means no-chemical processing and no fortification. Most of the processed foods in developed world are fortified with all sorts of nutrients, which again I feel are responsible for obesity including harmonal imbalance, since fortification is done in general and does not consider each individual's health and body needs.
I suggest FIU organic garden to all consider teaching students growing medicinal plants such as Tinospora cordifolia (a great medicinal plant which gives immunity against most common ailments of the tropic and temperate region), Sida cordifolia (another great medicinal weed (!) which improves the nerve strength (useful in parkison's, alzhimers, paralysis), Phyllanthus emblica (the gooseberry) useful as antiaging, in addition to the organic vegetables shown to the students.
Hail FIU organic garden. God bless FIU organic garden promoters and students. Oh I forgot, the background music was great. May I also suggest the person who gave background music to also get in touch with Dr John B Higgin's classical singing ? Higgin's can be found from Wesleyan University as also from Youtube.
MG Chandrakanth, Professor of agricultural economics, Univ of agricultural sciences, Bangalore, India and visiting DAAD scholar, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Very