A couple years ago, the California Department of Food and Agriculture approached me about filming our Garden Club students in action for a piece the agency was doing on agricultural literacy. They wanted to know how schools were teaching students about agriculture through the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom.
Check out my students in the CDFA video, one of several posted on CDFA website. Kind of proud!
If you haven’t heard of California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom, click on the non-profit’s website. The county and state farm bureaus throughout California sponsor CFAITC so those who attend CFAITC’s annual conferences get to participate in behind-the-scenes tours of dairies, wineries, Christmas tree farms, you-name-it. One of my favorite tours was of a lumber company near Santa Cruz. We watched employees cut logs into lumber from overhead catwalks.
The National Foundation for Ag in the Classroom is hosting its annual conference in Arizona this year. Traveling workshops for “Agriculture, Blooming in the Desert,” include information on American Indian farming on reservation lands, water issues, and Arizona specialty crops. Registration for this conference is going on now. The conference itself runs June 20-24, 2016.
Meanwhile, the California Foundation for Ag in the Classroom is already planning for the state conference, to be held in Sacramento in October. Watch the cfait.org website for information on this conference, as well as opportunities to get scholarships to the conference. While you’re on the website, check out free resources and grants posted there.