Growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, Mary Maranville said she always felt a deep connection to farming and saw value in understanding where our food comes from.
“When I moved to California 24 years ago, that connection continued and led me to want to educate students on where our food comes from. I think education leads to appreciation, which leads to conservation,” Maranville said.
As a result, Maranville developed Students for Eco-Education and Agriculture (SEEAG)—a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating students about where their food comes from by visiting local farms and learning about the effort it takes to provide food to local, state, and national communities, she said. SEEAG focuses on teaching third graders 200 days of the year by taking students to local farms where they get to experience a working ag enterprise, ask questions, and taste food right from the ground.
“You give a carrot to a kid in the kitchen and they won’t want to eat it, but at a farm, for whatever reason, they pull a carrot out of the ground and will start eating,” Maranville said. “They’ll pick and eat a tomato, they’ll try broccoli when it’s cut. I think something visceral happens when you’re at farms—you want to pick things and eat them.”
Now in its 15th year, SEEAG has educated more than 100,000 students in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, she said.
“After educating thousands of students over the years, I realized that a lot of parents didn’t know about agriculture. That’s why we came up with Farm Day: a family friendly day for thousands of people to go out and meet a farmer in their own backyard,” Maranville said.
Santa Barbara County Farm Day returns this year on Sept. 23 with local farmers across the county participating and welcoming residents onto their properties to educate families on how they grow their crops, she said. It’s the largest in-person educational event SEEAG provides, and it’s free for anyone to attend.
“This is an event where people can get produce, taste test, go on tours, and it’s all for free, and that’s also due to the generosity of our sponsors,” Maranville said. “We have over 5,000 people that meet farmers in their own backyard, do some taste testing. If 5,000 people walk away and learn one fact they didn’t know, that will make me happy.”
Maranville added that she believes people don’t realize all of the work that goes into harvesting produce like strawberries and how that impacts costs for grocery shoppers.
“I was told by a grower that to produce strawberries you need 500 people at the quantities California produces,” she said. “People in New York and Maine want to eat strawberries, but six months out of the year they’ve got snow on the ground. So our farmers here in California grow an abundance of food to feed the whole country and other countries.”
Wineries and vineyards are new Farm Day participants this year. People will have the opportunity to tour vineyards and taste grapes, and adults can taste wine, she said. Allan Hancock College’s vineyard will act as the “viticulture hub,” and people can branch off to other wine producers like Riverbench and Coastal Vineyard Care. As of Aug. 16, SEEAG was looking for more wineries and vineyards to participate.
“We’re hoping these vineyard managers and wineries can talk about the viticulture side of wineries, for example the soil composition and what makes great soil for syrah, for pinot,” she said, adding that she hopes they would touch on how water, weather, and fertilizer use impact grapes.
Overall, Maranville said she hopes education will lead to active preservation of agricultural lands, getting voters to support local agricultural measures and use their voices against large developments on agriculture property.
“For instance, I live in Los Alamos and a big development is coming in and they’re going to have 800 feet of a buffer zone, and that means 800 feet of agricultural land is going to get taken away. That’s just a little tiny example,” she said. “There are all of these encroachments on agriculture. If people go out and meet the farmers in their own backyard, ask questions, and build relationships, then it’ll show that we need to protect these farmers and their farmland.”
Pre-register for Farm Day by visiting my805tix.com/e/sbfarmday. Pre-registration is not required, but it will make visiting individual farms a smoother process, Maranville said. Tours run from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Visit santabarbaracountyfarmday.com or call (805) 892-8155 for more information and the latest list of farm participants.
Highlight
• Santa Maria-Bonita School District Robert Bruce Elementary School third grade teacher Andy Watson received the Key to the District Award from board President John Hollinshead during the board meeting on Aug. 9. Each school year, each board member has an opportunity to select a staff member, volunteer, student’s family member, supporter, or community partner who has had a remarkable influence on the schools and students of the district. Watson has been a teacher in the district for 25 years and is a third-generation teacher. He’s been a member of the Local Control and Accountability Plan Advisory Committee since its inception. He is a member of the Fine Arts Action Team and worked on the district’s recent visual and performing arts five year plan. Watson is a member of the Santa Maria Elementary Education Association (the teachers’ association) and has served on its council and executive board. He has been the longtime treasurer of the association’s political action committee and has worked on several campaigns for school board candidates.
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at [email protected].
