MIDDLETOWN, Del. &#8212 It’s a safe bet few students at the exclusive St. Andrew’s School plan to become farmers. It’s a boarding school where chestnut trees tower over Tudor-style buildings, so crisply manicured they filmed “Dead Poets Society” here.

But on the edge of campus, just beyond the tennis courts and soccer fields, sprout rows of green peas, sunflowers, zucchini and squash.

It’s a 2-acre organic garden tended by students as St. Andrew’s joins dozens of upper-crust prep schools across the country reviving agricultural programs. Environmental concerns and a local-produce trend are inspiring gardens and farms at schools that haven’t focused on agriculture in decades, if ever.

Now, farmers are on the faculty at some schools, and the title “sustainability coordinator” is becoming common at schools that likely never had Future Farmers of America clubs.

“It’s actually pretty cool,” said Kai Xin Chen, 15, a sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y., who signed up to help this year with the St. Andrew’s garden.

Recalling her efforts in recent days to haul in peas that seemed to ripen faster than she could pick them, Chen said, “It involves more physical work than I expected. I had to hoe! It’s so hard! My arms were, like, ugh. But it’s a good experience.”

Founded in 1929 in then-bucolic northern Delaware, St. Andrew’s once had a student-run dairy and required all boarders to help with farm work. But sometime after World War II, students starting spending more time indoors, and student farming was abandoned. Two years ago, students returned to the soil to experiment with growing organic produce for the dining hall. The farm is also used for science classes.

Many schools are joining the trend.

“We recognized that students don’t know where their food comes from, what a squash looks like or how to dig a potato,” said Jennifer Wilhelm, sustainability coordinator at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. Exeter, a boarding school similar to St. Andrew’s,