National Agriculture Day Message Promotes Food and Farm to Students

Utah elementary school students will get a reminder of where their food comes from during National Agriculture Week, March 16 - 22.

The Utah Department of Agriculture, in partnership with the Utah Agriculture In The Classroom Program, produced and distributed 500 audio tapes to Utah elementary schools.

The tapes contain five different messages that promote agriculture. They are voiced by 5th and 6th grade students from Backman Elementary school in Salt Lake City. The taped messages will be combined with a daily lesson offered by teachers on the value of agriculture. The messages will focus on where our food comes from, agricultural science, nutrition and agriculture in the world around us.

The tapes will be played to students through their school's public address systems each morning during National Agriculture Week.

Taped Messages

• Message 1, Monday, March 17 ---- "Agriculture is safe food"
• Message 2, Tuesday, March 18 ----"Agriculture is food, farms and a lot more"
• Message 3, Wednesday, March 19 ---"Agriculture is breakfast, lunch and dinner"
• Message 4, Thursday, March 20 (National Ag. Day) ---"Agriculture is science"
• Message 5, Friday, March 21 --- "Agriculture nutrition and 5-a-day"

Besides telling children where their food comes from, the messages also offer reasons to respect and protect farmland. With only 2 percent of our population producing food and fiber for us all, many students have no idea where their food and clothing come from. American agriculture employs 21 million people or 18.5 percent of the labor force. The American family spends 11 percent of its total income on food, the lowest in the world.

Utah Department of Agriculture News Release -- Ag Day 1997

Each person in the country needs 1.2 acres of farmland to maintain current nutrition levels. Population growth is cutting into that 1.2 acres per capita.

Utah lost nearly one million acres of farmland during the time the state's population rose from one million to two million. Utah now has just 0.6 acres of prime farmland per person.

The five taped Agriculture Week messages are available as public service messages for Utah radio stations. Contact Larry Lewis, (801) 538-7104, for more information.

Posted March 11, 1997