Teachers are the link farmers use to talk to children who will become tomorrow’s consumers.
And Saskatchewan’s Agriculture in the Classroom program now has allies in two-thirds of the province’s school divisions through its 120 Ag Ambassadors. The ambassador program trains teachers to be the resource and communication person for their colleagues looking for information about farming.
Teacher requests are almost a daily feature of Saskatchewan’s AITC program, said past chair Dayle Bowman at the group’s annual meeting.
Teachers will be part of the strategy at a July 8-12 writing workshop, said executive director Barb Johnson. The Saskatoon workshop will develop information booklets about three areas – animal agriculture, crop production and biotechnology.
The booklets will be shared with other AITC programs.
The Saskatchewan program has a 1998 budget of $100,000. Half of that funding came from Saskatchewan Agriculture delivered by pro-vincial finance minister Eric Cline.
The minister said AITC is “taking a little bit of seed money and drawing on resources of partner organizations. That’s what we need – don’t reinvent the wheel but enabling and training others to carry your vision forward. For a small group not consuming a lot of resources, you’re doing a big job.”
