Actually, I've been thinking about educating for agriculture a lot lately. It comes up a lot in school, of course. We often learn of horrible animal abuse stories in the media and learn to both properly care for our livestock and to educate non-farmers about how our lives intertwine with their food. I'll just leave it at that before I go on a rant about misconceptions about agriculture. Last semester the final project for one of my classes was to do a feasibility study for a proposed venture that could either change the whole farm or bring in extra income from the existing farm. We all had to present our findings at the end of the semester (I think I died a little on the inside when I did my presentation). One of the groups that I listened to presented an idea for a way to educate city folk about agriculture by bringing them out to the farm. Unfortunately, final exams and a lovely Christmas break have clouded my memory, so I can't exactly remember how they proposed to do that, but it was certainly an interesting idea. I'd also heard of similar ventures in another class during a discussion of agri-tourism.
I'm not about to start up an agri-tourism venture any time soon. I definitely do not have the people skills for that. However, I do think that every city dweller should visit a farm sometime and see the work in action. In fact, my parents have agreed to let me invite a friend to the farm for a week this summer. This friend works with some Olds College students in a ministry capacity and does a good job of it. However, she is from the city. To be specific, she is from Toronto (and now Calgary), if I'm not mistaken. I think sometimes she gets a little bit left out of conversations in the big group because we're all talking crops and, well, she does her best to keep up. Not only that, but I've begun to notice that farmers have their own culture that's very different from city culture. I'd never really noticed it before because I grew up in it, but I've talked to my sister, who also attended Olds College, and she agrees that it seems to be a bit overwhelming for city folk to come and interact with the farmers at Olds. So, after thinking it through, I decided that anyone who works with Olds College students really ought to experience the farm and I invited my friend to come out for a week sometime this summer.
Today I was sitting in class, listening to the instructor take us through a review of soils. Not everyone in the class has taken a soils class, so this review was important, but since I took a soils class last year, I was pretty bored. When I get bored my mind wanders and sometimes, without my permission, it suddenly takes off and I can't stop it. That's what happened today in the middle of a discussion of ecoregions and chernozemic soils. I suddenly knew that these thoughts couldn't wait another two hours until I got home from school, so I flipped to a new page of looseleaf in my binder and madly starting scribbling down ideas. I got down a partial itinerary, a reading list, and a list of things that my friend really needs to see and learn about in her week on the farm (hopefully we actually get to them all). I finally was released from classes and hurried home to get my ideas into a more coherent form. Three hours later, I had polished up the itinerary, made up a waiver form for my friend to sign (because, hey, farming is a dangerous business), written out a general educational plan for teaching my friend, or anyone else about agriculture and farming culture, and typed an outline for a pre-visit reading package. This is going to be one intense week (not for me; I'll mainly just be doing my regular work with an extra shadow and someone to actually hear when I talk to myself).
Like I said, I'm not about to open the farm up to the public, but I think it's important to cross the sometimes barely perceptible cultural divide between farmers and city folk. We farmers learn a lot about city culture through the public education system and then later as we leave home and go to school in the city. City folk don't seem to learn a lot about the country, though. I'd like to encourage any city person who is curious about farming to talk to a farmer you know and maybe even ask to spend some time shadowing them (that means doing what they do and helping as much as you can with the work so the farmer doesn't have to take time away from the fields and livestock for you). Ask lots of questions and whatever you do, don't let the media (idealistic or horrific) paint a picture of what farming is for you.
