This weeks conversation explores how much power we really have in our food system – and what changes when we start to use it. Mary Bishop, Head of Education at GIY, brings the classroom, the school garden and the kitchen table together to show that food education is ultimately about agency, not perfection.
Mary shares how simple acts like growing salad leaves in a window box or asking “who grew this?” can transform children’s relationship with food. When young people grow even a little of their own food, they develop “food empathy” – a deeper understanding of effort, seasonality and waste – which in turn shifts family habits at home.
We also dig into the stories we’re fed about food. Supermarket shelves, marketing and convenience culture give us one narrative; school gardens, community plots and programmes like GIY’s GROW at School offer another. When you “feed them a narrative around where our food comes from,” you open up space for questions about fairness, climate, health and who gets access to good food.
For more visit https://giy.ie/