CAMP HILL, Pa. — Pennsylvania Farm Bureau (PFB) President Rick Ebert officially kicked off Ag Literacy Week in Pennsylvania during a book reading before his granddaughter’s class at Grandview Elementary School in Westmoreland County. Ag Literacy Week was created in 2017 by the Pennsylvania Friends of Agriculture Foundation, which is a charitable organization supported by PFB.
As part of the celebration, which runs from March 16-20, hundreds of Pennsylvania farmers are scheduled to return to school to read a book to students in kindergarten through second grade and talk about their life on the farm. The volunteer readers, which include Farm Bureau, FFA and 4-H members, dairy princesses and others
representing Pennsylvania’s agricultural community, will also help students participate in a fun, hands-on activity.
“Although the students we are meeting with are relatively young and not responsible for making food purchases, we believe it is vitally important for farmers to engage with children and talk about the role we play in producing the food they eat,” said PFB President Rick Ebert, who is also chairman of the Pennsylvania Friends of Agriculture Foundation.
The foundation selected the book “On the Farm, At the Market” by G. Brian Karas for Ag Literacy Week. The story includes stops at a vegetable farm, a mushroom farm and a dairy farm that makes cheese. The book focuses on how those farms ensure that fresh food is delivered to a farm market in a timely manner and follows a café owner, who buys locally-grown food from the market to create a dinner special at the neighborhood restaurant.
Grandview Elementary School kindergarten students (from left to right) Zachary Cecil, Kaylee Ellenberger, Lily Haines and Kismet Lisbon participate in a fun and hands-on activity where they learned about healthy food typically available at farmers markets as part of Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Ag Literacy Week.
Aside from the book reading, students participated in a fun and interactive activity where they learned how to build a healthy meal from food that is typically available at a local farmers market.
“Ag Literacy Week provides a unique opportunity for students to learn about the connection between the food they eat at home and the farms the food comes from. It also provides farmers the opportunity to talk with kids about what it is like to live and work on a farm and the role they play in getting food from the farm to the dinner table,” concluded Ebert.
For more information about Ag Literacy Week, go to https://www.pfb.com/about-ag-literacy-week. Pennsylvania Farm Bureau is the state’s largest farm organization, representing farms of every size and commodity across Pennsylvania.
–Mark O’Neill, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau