A farm industry-sponsored program is persuading teachers that agriculture is more than “rubber boots and coveralls.”
According to Al Morhart, executive director of Agriculture in the Classroom (Sask.) Inc., teachers change their minds about not including farming in their lesson plans after they see the science and popular subjects that fall under his group’s mandate.
Subjects such as water and genetically modified organisms are opening their eyes to agriculture, he added.
The eight-year-old program creates tools that teachers can use in their classes to present agriculture to students who often aren’t in touch with farms any more. A lunch kit for growing plants that is designed for grade 5 and 6 students is one of the more popular tools. Teachers across Canada are ordering them.
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Morhart expects a similar good response to the newly written Grow up with Safety program tied to the health curriculum. It teaches not only farm safety, but also pedestrian and chemical safety and first aid. AITC plans to develop an accompanying website for kids.
Although every province but Quebec has an AITC, Saskatchewan’s program is taking a leadership role. At last year’s national conference of AITC programs, all agreed on the need to form a Canadian group. Morhart volunteered the Saskatchewan group to lead that effort. The groups meet again in Charlottetown at the end of May to write a strategic plan.
They have applied for money from the Canadian Adaptation and Rural Development fund. Morhart is also talking to commodity groups to get support in principle for a national AITC program, with a funding request to follow.
“The constant in agriculture is the need to reach youth and close the gap,” he said. “Where you don’t have knowledge, you have mistrust of a food system, of farm practices.”
At the Saskatchewan AITC annual meeting March 26, it was reported the organization brought in $273,096 in 2002. Board president John Serhienko said that was a great step from the $35,000 raised for the AITC’s first year in 1995.
However, he said the group should not be complacent because the war in Iraq has harmed international shipping in the area, curtailed pulse sales, driven up fuel and fertilizer prices and increased costs to the United States, Canada’s biggest trading partner.
“Our biggest members and funders are agribusiness. If they take a hit, so do we.”
