GARDENING IS MORE FUN THAN PLAYSTATION SAY 60% OF CHILDREN IN THE “FARM FRIENDLY EDUCATION” PROJECT BY COLDIRETTI.

What’s more fun than PlayStation? Why, planting a vegetable garden, of course. This is the result of the “Farm Friendly Education” project promoted by Coldiretti, the Federation of Italian Farmers, for 400 children in elementary and middle schools in Milan. The children became farmers: they dug and planted a vegetable garden with spring lettuces and tomatoes and their final exam was selling their wares at the market stalls.

60% of the children acknowledged that planting a vegetable garden outdoors is more satisfying and challenging than PlayStation. Gardening is a fun activity and brings children closer to nature and the environment. For most city children it reveals an unexpected world: discovering the rhythms of the seasons, the cycles of nature and the characteristics of its products.

For Coldiretti, it is an important opportunity to rediscover, especially in younger generations, the principles of tradition, a healthy diet, the seasonality of products and territorial reality, aimed at enhancing the foundations of the Mediterranean diet and rebuilding the bond that ties agricultural products to daily food consumption.

The same formula will be repeated in other cities, in five stages that will bring children to the “earth space” with the preparation of the vegetable garden then to the ”fruit and vegetable market” where they will learn to recognize fresh, made in Italy seasonal produce: from “Italy space” to “ global reality” and finally to the space devoted to “conviviality”. There will be a lesson at each stage in relation to the children’s direct experience. This is a true “mission” for Coldiretti, highlighting the new generation’s thirst for knowledge about nature.