Each year Tennessee celebrates Agriculture Literacy Week as an opportunity for teachers and volunteers to share valuable information in TN schools about growing and harvesting food and by-products. Food, fiber, and fuel for our country are invaluable materials that many youths never really understand where they come from or their significant importance.

According to Julie Giles, TN Ag Lit Week event co-chair, less than two percent of the population is involved in production agriculture, leaving youths with little to no knowledge of how food is raised and produced. That is a scary raw fact for this country’s future if you ask me; if not for agriculture, what is left?

What is Ag Lit Week and how does this event sprout farming knowledge in our youths? Tennessee Ag Lit Week is celebrated each year. Locally, Union County Farm Bureau has a small library of approved ag books for volunteers to check out and read to classrooms. All of the Union County elementary schools are very welcoming for folks to read in the classrooms and help teach their students the importance of farming and ag products. At some schools this year, it was very appropriately timed in between their pig and dairy lessons.

It is easy to get involved. Reach out to your local farm bureau or extension office and voice that you would like to read to a group, it is that simple. When it is time to reach next year, you may get a call to pick up books and a lesson to take with you and educate a class. Not only is it a fun volunteer project that takes little time and could instill lifelong knowledge in a child, but also I found it quite rewarding seeing the intrigue in the eyes of the kindergarten students as I read to the Big Ridge Elementary classes of Mrs. Whitney Copeland and Mrs. Natalie Gideon, Pigs: an A-Z Book by Anderson and Buggey. They were quite perplexed to learn that pigs are actually very clean animals in contradiction to the stereotypical grimy, muddy pig that everyone thinks of.

Each Ag Literacy session takes about 30 minutes per classroom. Agriculture volunteers work with their county coordinators to set up visits to their local schools. Volunteers read to students in the classrooms. Following the reading, volunteers may conduct an activity with students and share their experiences about agriculture.

Local ag partners work together to support the effort and get as many students involved as possible. It is typical for FFA, 4-H, Farm Bureau, UT Extension, as well as local farmers to all work together to share their agriculture knowledge in our schools. This year at least seven volunteers read to four of the elementary schools and a headstart class in UC. There is word that Farm Bureau may be adding some new books to the collection before next year’s celebratory week, so email Farm Bureau board member Ashley Mike at ampadgett3@gmail.com if you’d like to get involved in enhancing the program! Glance thru resources at TennesseeAg.org .