Farm Day teaches students about agriculture

Published 12:08 pm Friday, April 12, 2013

Ralph Hayes of R&N Farms in the Collins Chapel community shows Thorsby FFA members McKinley Sellers, left, and Lacey Caudle the proper technique for milking a goat Friday during the school's first Farm Day.Ralph Hayes of R&N Farms in the Collins Chapel community shows Thorsby FFA members McKinley Sellers, left, and Lacey Caudle the proper technique for milking a goat Friday during the school’s first Farm Day.

Ask a Thorsby fourth grader where milk comes from, and the answer might be different from that of a typical 9-year-old.

Instead of “from the grocery store,” Thorsby fourth graders, who on Friday participated in the school’s first Future Farmers of America Farm Day, will tell you, “from a cow.”

That’s an important distinction for Brian Lucas, Thorsby’s FFA sponsor.

“We have so many people walking around, even in Chilton County, who have no idea where this stuff comes from,” Lucas said about everyday food and other products that come from the country’s farming industry.

So, Lucas and his FFA members wanted to hold the Farm Day to teach their schoolmates about agriculture.

About 70 Thorsby FFA members manned stations that were designed to teach about 60 fourth graders about livestock, soybeans, corn and cotton. There were live chickens, cows, goats, pigs and horses.

T-shirts were given to the fourth graders that read, “I know where my food comes from.”

“It’s about education,” Lucas said. “I grew up in agriculture, so I know how important it is. That’s what fuels our economy.”

School FFA President Kevin Owens said he and his classmates hope to make Farm Day an annual event–and grow the event.

“Hopefully, we can expand it next year and have other schools come in,” Owens said.