Written and Submitted by Marissa Staffen, Montclair Community Farms
This past week we welcomed a group of 9 energetic and ambitious high school students from across Essex County onto the farm! Our farmpreneurs will be busy this season gaining hands-on experience in agriculture, culinary arts, and entrepreneurship as participants in our “Empowering Youth Entrepreneurs From Seed to Sale” project. Each week they’ll be learning about topics in farming, visiting farms and businesses across NJ, and creating wheat-based value-added products! Value-added products are defined by USDA as those that undergo a change in the physical state or form of the product in order to enhance their market value.
In their first week, they visited our friends at MEVO, the Mahwah Environmental Volunteers Organization, learned about the importance of small grain farming, and began brainstorming their dream value-added products! They also worked hard on-site harvesting, planting, weeding, trellising, and preparing for our Montclair Community Farms Mobile Farm Stand! Please be sure to visit this season (June-November) at one of our farm stand sites. https://www.montclaircommunityfarms.org/mobile-farm-stand