A big boost in government funding for Saskatchewan’s Agriculture in the Classroom program is designed to interest more students in agriculture careers and educate people about their food.
The province and Ottawa announced June 15 they would increase funding by $200,000 in each of the next two years through Growing Forward 2.
“We think Ag in the Classroom and sort of re-educating the public about the good positive story behind agriculture in Saskatchewan is one of the very important things that we do,” said agriculture minister Lyle Stewart.
Read Also
Restaurant blends zero waste, ancient farming
A Mexico City restaurant has become a draw for its zero-waste kitchen, which means that every scrap of food and leftovers is reused for other purposes.
“The easiest time to get to the general public is in the formative years at school.”
The money is expected to help AITC-SK reach an additional 24,000 students. An estimated 136,000 students have participated in the organization’s programs over the past seven years.
Sara Shymko, executive director, said the extra money is targeted to three areas: distributing more resource kits, transportation support and career exploration.
“This money is huge for our program,” she said. “We have an increasing demand for agricultural education all across the province and the increase in this funding is going to allow us to meet that demand by developing and distributing even more resources and addressing the challenge of transportation issues schools face to get out to programs like (Canadian Western) Agribition, like Canada’s Farm Progress Show.”
Career development focuses on middle and high school students.
“What we find, they don’t even consider careers in agriculture because agriculture is “boring” to them,” Shymko said. “We need to engage them and interest them in how exciting agriculture is. Right now, there’s a lot of interest in food and surprisingly people don’t make the connection between the food that they’re eating and the many careers that are related to that.”
