AKRON – Cattle are officially being raised on school grounds at Tippecanoe Valley High School. The delivery of four steers on December 8 was the last major piece of the school’s Farm-to-Fork program to come together.
Dale Miller raises cattle on his farm near Claypool and sold the steers to the school at a discounted price. He spent his entire life around agriculture and wanted to be involved with the program as soon as he heard about it.
“It’s very applicable for a rural school because a lot of the students are probably involved in agriculture in some degree. They now get hands-on experience working directly with this,” said Miller, who is also a Tippecanoe Valley graduate.
The steers are a mix of both Angus and Hereford breeds. They will be raised to a certain weight and then processed at This Old Farm in Colfax, Indiana, a USDA-inspected processing facility.
“It’s really exciting that they’re doing this. I think it’s going to be a good program. It really makes sense for kids to see how this works from A to B,” said Miller.
The Farm-to-Fork initiative started as an idea in a political economic studies class about how to put a better quality meal on school cafeteria tables. The idea eventually turned into a plan to raise calves on school grounds, process the meat, and then use the meat in school lunches.
Curriculum will now be designed around the program for a variety of subjects. Community partnerships and grant money will be looked at to sustain Farm-to-Fork in the future.
