Elementary students begin Ag Week with farm visit

News

March 14, 2016 By Tom Steever Filed Under: Missouri

About 100 elementary school children visited a central Missouri farm at the opening of Ag Week to get an explanation of where their food comes from. Their primary instructor on the field trip was Missouri Director of Agriculture Richard Fordyce.

“It’s good for us to remind them that everything from the shoes on their feet, to the paper in their notebooks, to the lunch on the tray all go back to agriculture,” Fordyce told Brownfield Ag News at the Fischer Farms Monday.

Nichols Career Center FFA Vice President Alicen Jennings said that she wants elementary students to experience agriculture at an early age.

“That kind of cements it in their head that agriculture is a good thing,” Jennings told Brownfield. “We want to know more about agriculture and that way maybe we can have more generations who are more aware of agriculture.”

Jennings’ FFA advisor Jeff Suthoff adds that today’s youth are at least a couple of generations removed from the farm and a farm visit is what’s needed at their age.

“People have to know where their food comes from,” said Suthoff. “With all the GMO information and misinformation that’s out there today, we’ve got to start young to get their minds thinking about there’s a reason why we do the things that we do.”

Classes from Jefferson City East Elementary School and from New Bloomfield visited Fischer Farms near Jefferson City.