Oregon Agribusiness Council's Adopt a Farmer Program

Oregon Agribusiness Council's Adopt a Farmer Program

As all of us in agriculture realize — the general public is getting further and further away from knowing and understanding how their food is grown. The Agribusiness Council of Oregon’s Adopt a Farmer Program is designed to bring the farmer or rancher into middle school class rooms to help students learn more about agriculture. The Agribusiness Council of Oregon’s Director of Community Outreach Mallory Phelan says that they are actively looking for Oregon farmers and ranchers to participate in the program as they currently have more schools interested than they do participating farmers. She describes the kind of producers they are looking for.
Phelan: “So people who are willing to share their story and talk to students. We focus on the middle school classroom. All of our funding is for middle schoolers. Willing to go into the classroom, a lot of farmers are okay with having students come to their operation but they tend to be a little more nervous about going into a middle school. But my only job is to support this program so I am with that farmer every step of the way.”
In the classroom the farmers work with teachers to make sure activities tie-in to current curriculum. The farmers have done activities related to soil, water, conservation, irrigation, genetics, farm-to-table continuum and economics.
Recently Northwest Farm Credit Services contributed $30,000 to this program to continue its good work.

 

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