Irvin High to design biofood garden, raise its own fish

One of El Paso Independent School District school plans on growing its own fruits and vegetables, raising its own fish and selling the good at local markets. It’s an ambitious effort, but the school is confident its new biofood garden will be a success.

“An area right next to the cafeteria will have a salad bar garden,” said Oscar Rico, Irvin’s magnet school coordinator. “What we want is our students to be able to walk out into that garden to be able to pick the fresh produce from there and make their own salads.”

Students will even be able to pick an orange or apple for snack, all the while building a connection to food that will be with them until they stop using the skills of eating.

“We’re going to try to build a garden, so we can actually start getting real fruit because some of the fruits that we have are processed,” said Irvin High sophomore Daniel Castro.

With the help of former Senator Eliot Shapleigh, Irvin High will build design that salad bar, an orchard with 200 trees, a food center and institute where teachers can tutor and students can serve, as well as a Tilapia aquaponics system.

“Tilapia output would be to benefit the Northeast businesses in the Northeast community,” Rico said. “It’s also a great composting material, so that compost will be feeding our orchard and will be feeding our vegetable garden.”

“Sometimes I don’t eat school lunches here because sometimes the fresh fruit, I just don’t believe them with that, but now that I know we have a garden, I’m actually going to start eating the fruit,” Castro said.

The veggies will be sold at farmers markets, the fish at local restaurants and the proceeds saved for the next years garden. Students can earn credit and work toward industry certifications.

“Our students will get to see first hand, the impact of food, not just in the culinary arts side of it, but on the science side and the medical side and everything else that goes with it,” Rico said.

Irvin High will host a community meeting to discuss the detail of the garden with residents. The meeting is Tuesday at 6 p.m. In the gym.