 It’s time for Essex school
children to get excited about their food........
The
Society in partnership with Writtle College and Essex County Council
will host its fifth Essex Schools Food and Farming Day on the 24th May
2012.
Now firmly set on the school calendar, the event
gives over 3000 children between 8 and 11 and 500 teachers from over 60
schools within the county an insight into the origin of their food and
its journey from field to fork.
In
early October, invitations dropped on the doorstep of all Primary
Schools throughout Essex and as usual, the response was phenomenal.
It
is now January, and only 4 months to the event.
We
have allocated 3,000 places to schools throughout Essex and have been
communicating with teachers about the day. We are
pleased to
announce that over 60% of schools who applied are new
schools. With
so many school applying for places, we are once again over subscribed. Our many exhibitors who make up
the zones will receive their official invitations early
February, but
most have already said they would once again love to be part
of such a
well received event.
 There
are five distinct zones for children to visit and they will be taken on
an exciting journey through each zone by volunteer farmers, where they
will see crops, livestock, the countryside, machinery and food.
In the crop zone visitors get
up
close to crops such as wheat, barley, potatoes, beans, peas, oilseed
rape, sugar beet and field vegetables, learning how they give us
food.
They will watch wheat being turned into flour right in front of their
eyes and shown how flour is turned into a multitude of food-stuffs such
as bread and cereals.
Most
children have a fascination with farm
animals, and in the livestock zone they will visit cows, pigs, sheep
and poultry, learning life-cycles, charting the animal’s life from
birth, watching cows being milked and also sheep being sheared and the
wool stored ready for processing.
A firm favourite, is the
machinery zone which always proves to be a great hit for everyone with
lots of modern, high-tech, farm machinery.  Here
they will see demonstrations of working implements like combines,
tractors, seed drills and bailers and learn how fields are seeded and
crops are managed and harvested. Without these
machines the
world would not be able to produce enough food to feed the ever growing
population and most of the children visiting would still be working on
farms!
In the countryside and environment zone, children
will learn that not only do farmers produce food, but also care for and
manage the countryside and that the landscape they see has been created
by man’s activities over the centuries. It is important that
visitors to the countryside appreciate and understand how the
countryside is created and how it works. From hedges and
trees,
to the birds and bees that rely on them for shelter, it soon becomes
clear that farming shares its responsibilities for food production,
with fuel production and habitat creation, especially in an
agricultural county like Essex, and also has a large part to play in
combating climate change.
Finally
the last, but arguably the most important zone, is the food zone. Here
the field to fork story is completed by demonstrating to children how
ingredients produced in the livestock and crop zones are turned into
delicious nutritional snacks. Cooking from scratch, there is
an
opportunity for some food tasting which could be anything from a
healthy pizza to a scrummy fruit smoothie, made on the smoothie bike of
course!
After a fun education day, with the thanks to
the many volunteer helpers, everyone will go home with a better
understanding of how the food they eat gets to their plates.
None
of this would be possible if it were not for the many passionate Essex
farmers and rural based organisations in Essex who give up their time
to exhibit their hands on interactive activities and share their
knowledge with the children. Essex Agricultural Society
and
all the volunteers, know that with food production very high
on
everyone’s agenda at the moment, this event is not only a must for all
who have an interest in the food chain, but that it is also essential
that we keep on telling the story of agriculture in Essex.
For more details on the above, please contact karen.watson@essexag.co.uk.
 
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