By: Ag. Reporter Mollie Goode
Local agriculture gained a lot of support this week after the Christian County Agriculture Department’s Farm to Fork Dinner.
After a busy week of preparation, the event went off with a hitch and started to shed light on recent problems facing agriculture education today.
Christian County Ag. teacher Jacob Jaworski says the Ag. Department is rewriting the standard with hands-on learning opportunities in their Livestock Barn. He adds, the barn has provided the school with a one-of-a-kind learning experience and success has only been made possible through community support.
The Christian County Livestock Barn has been a growing project for the department this past year—during that time the project has grown into a mixed species facility providing kids with learning along the way. Jaworski mentions the growing need to educate kids about where their food comes from; the barn seemed to be the fix.
Jaworski goes on to say the program has always been excellent about teaching the cycle behind production and where food comes from, but even they were missing one crucial part— consumerism. While operating the livestock barn, kids became well versed in all sectors of agriculture, so the next logical step was to make sure students realized how much work goes into the production of meat products, from raising to butchering to processing.Â
With the momentum gained from the Farm to Fork Dinner, the Christian County Ag. Department welcomes everyone to enjoy their products over the holiday season. Pork products will be for sale Friday at the BBQ Shack from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and a link is available on their Facebook page to schedule a pickup time.
The Christian County Ag Department and FFA will continue to improve their existing curriculum through the help of the livestock barn and be a positive outlet when demonstrating production agriculture.