Education about farming

[Countrycat]

Hi, I am a primary school teacher looking for an insight into what farmers believe children should be taught about farming.

Would you welcome visits to your own farms?
Are there things which the general public often don't know about farming which children should be taught?
Are there current issues which you think teachers should be focusing on?

Any information and insights you can give me would greatly appreciated, thank you

 

[Doc]

The obvious starter is to simply explain that farming is simply the husbanding of natural resources of sunlight, water and soil to produce the food everyone eats. I would link this process to the carbon and water cycles and explain it is a process of organising these to produce food and fibre which is eaten or worn.
keep it simple, which it is, and leave the confusing politics and propaganda out.

 

[Old McDonald]

Why are there not numerous responses to this thread?

@Countrycat I am farming in Portugal, currently dedicated to the olive harvest and will be for several more weeks. If you want a response from me I would be most willing to give you one, but I assume you are a iming at UK farmers who should not miss such an opportunity.

 

[yellowbelly]

Hello @Countrycat, welcome to TFF.
It's a very refreshing change to have someone come to the 'sharp end' of food production to ask us for our thoughts on the job. Recently we've all become rather beleaguered by all and sundry laying the woes of the world at our door

I'm a big believer that children should be encouraged to visit farms and see things for themselves from an early age. IMHO far too many think eggs come from cardboard cartons, carrots are clean and shiny and grow on trees, etc, etc.

We try to do our bit at lambing time (Mrs YB is particularly good, as I'm a bit 'grumpy' at that time of year) and with things like Open Farm Sundays and often find, with kids of the age group that you are involved with, their parents are just as likely to need a bit of 'education' too.

In these current difficult times, I'd like you to try and get the 'local produced' angle across and try to show that things like grass produced red meat, etc are more of the answer rather than the problem with regard to climate change.
Just how far you can go with the intricacies of the carbon cycle and the like with children of primary school age, you would know better than me.

At the end of the day, everyone needs to eat at least once a day (and preferably two or three times a day), it must make more sense for it to come from local farms rather than chemical factories.

 

[PostHarvest]

As you can see from many other posts on this forum, farming is being criticised by the media and pressure groups for causing climate change and 1001 other world problems. We truly believe that most of this is based on information which is either skewed to make political points or just plain wrong and we would love to inform the public of the true situation. Many farmers welcome school pupils onto their farms - but there are necessary restrictions, mainly to make sure that everyone keeps safe, after all farms are workplaces and there are hazards in every workplace.
The ideal time to see a farm is on open farm Sunday each June when hundreds of farms open their gates to visitors.
Where are you located in the country?

 

[An Gof]

Hi, I am a primary school teacher looking for an insight into what farmers believe children should be taught about farming.

Would you welcome visits to your own farms?
Are there things which the general public often don't know about farming which children should be taught?
Are there current issues which you think teachers should be focusing on?

Any information and insights you can give me would greatly appreciated, thank you

Hi @Countrycat welcome to TFF

The NFU run an education department which can give you information and resources on the questions you ask. Have a look at this link https://education.nfuonline.com there is also a Facebook site you might find of interest https://www.facebook.com/NFUSchools

If you need further contact information send me a PM

 

[Daniel Larn]

Hi @Countrycat welcome to TFF

The NFU run an education department which can give you information and resources on the questions you ask. Have a look at this link https://education.nfuonline.com

If you need further contact information send me a PM

The NFU have a speakers for schools program, but it is aimed at KS3 and higher.

I am sure someone here would be able to help you and come into school for chat.

Best of luck!

 

[delilah]

Hi, I am a primary school teacher looking for an insight into what farmers believe children should be taught about farming.

Would you welcome visits to your own farms?
Are there things which the general public often don't know about farming which children should be taught?
Are there current issues which you think teachers should be focusing on?

Any information and insights you can give me would greatly appreciated, thank you

Where abouts are you ? There may be someone on here who could invite you to their farm
My OH teaches primary, one thing I have learnt, don't believe everything you find on Twinkl

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index...info-sheet-on-cows-and-climate-change.301538/

good resources here:

www.leafuk.org

 

[som farmer]

we used to have local primary school, including my 2 kids, couple times a year, headmistress changed, she was more vegan, than vegetarian, so that was that. Brother in law, teaching in Bristol, brought a mini bus load of kids, not top set, (PC), unloaded, lecture about staying together, they were gone, everywhere, scared me, not had any since. My daughter teaches reception, and makes a point of teaching her kids about food, and where it comes from. Good luck, have a chat with NFU, and thankyou for thinking about showing kids where their food comes from ! I sometimes think, with all the bad press we get, that people have forgotten that farmers keep them alive !!!

 

[sheepdip]

I assume that you are not in Scotland, but nevertheless it may be worth your while checking out RHET. It is an excellent charity which has done a lot of work to develop resources for teachers, and many are available for free. There may well be something of interest to you on their website.

 

[melted welly]

Hi, I am a primary school teacher looking for an insight into what farmers believe children should be taught about farming.

Would you welcome visits to your own farms?
Are there things which the general public often don't know about farming which children should be taught?
Are there current issues which you think teachers should be focusing on?

Any information and insights you can give me would greatly appreciated, thank you

hi!

kids are smart, but easily influenced. As said above, avoid the fashionable politics of the day. The current constant drip feed of negativity, blame and ignorance towards our industry is disheartening, misleading and worrying. The anti meat agenda pushed by the media is perhaps somewhat relevant on a global scale (ie South American rainforests) but pretty irrelevant to the Uk. Each hectare of grass grown to feed animals sequesters the same amount of co2 as is released annually by a typical family car. The livestock industry also “tidies up” all the veg that our fussy supermarkets don’t want and turns it into higher value product.

What is missing from the general public’s understanding of what we do is how all the fragmented little insights that they encounter in their busy lives fit together. For example when we’re in the car we look out for the different types of lorries that might be hauling grain or animals or straw, we look at the fields with the crops in different stages of growth, we look out for old “windybines” that might of pumped water in a previous life. If we’re out late and meet a tractor we have a look to see what he’s been doing and try to provide an explanation - tractor and baler + rain forecast = farmer rushing to get straw baled before the storm, they get really engaged with the story.

I also find ours get most enthused about seeing a job done the whole way through, so plant some seeds, grow them on, harvest them and make food yourselves. Doesn’t need to be anything fancy, carrots in a tub, cress on the window sill, flower bulbs in a cupboard to plant out in spring.

kids on farms would be something that places would need to have a bit of thought about doing. I’d love to have kids in and show them round but the reality is that the sites aren’t suitable because they’re busy and if there not busy, nothing is happening so not much to see.

if you put on a location perhaps there are some members close to you

 

[Brisel]

Hi, I am a primary school teacher looking for an insight into what farmers believe children should be taught about farming.

Would you welcome visits to your own farms?
Are there things which the general public often don't know about farming which children should be taught?
Are there current issues which you think teachers should be focusing on?

Any information and insights you can give me would greatly appreciated, thank you

I host schools visits every year, along with Open Farm Sunday.

LEAF have a good section on Open Farm Sunday and schools visits https://leafuk.org/education/leaf-education
I use Countryside Learning who act as the interface between farmers like myself and schools http://www.countrysidelearning.org/

 

[DaveGrohl]

I was going to post yesterday about how wonderful it was that a teacher actually wanted to ask farmers about what to teach their children about farming, rather than going straight to an"alternative" source of information. I'm grateful that there are still intelligent people looking after today's young people who aren't swayed by the latest fad of the day. I'd completely agree that there should be no mention at all about climate change as it's got nothing much to do with food production except in the minds of the media. Everyone needs to eat, there's nothing more important in life than food, not even health. You need to remain alive before you can become unhealthy.

 

[Treg]

Get them out on to farms, ask local farmers if they'd be interested in hosting visits.
What is produced locally round the school?
Any of the parents involved in farming that could give a talk or help find someone local?
Adopt a farm ? Work with a local farmer , maybe they could take photos through out the year to show how the work changes with the seasons.

 

[upnortheast]

Big help @Countrycat if you gave your location . As mentioned above in scotland RHET does great work getting kids onto farms - & farmers into school.
https://www.facetimeafarmer.com/ is another way of getting a farmer into your classroom.

Your local NFU office would be able to suggest suitable local farms

Lots of resources on farms could fit into curriculem. Maths Chemistry Biology history & more

 

[Turkish_FR]

Hi, I am a primary school teacher looking for an insight into what farmers believe children should be taught about farming.

Would you welcome visits to your own farms?
Are there things which the general public often don't know about farming which children should be taught?
Are there current issues which you think teachers should be focusing on?

Any information and insights you can give me would greatly appreciated, thank you

I would teach children not to live away from the nature and farming. I would teach them the cycles of nature, how our foods are formed and how the things which we call as "waste" (creates an ugly impression in their mind) are mingled again with nature and turn into useful-essential things for our use again.