(ALCESTER, SD) - Ag-United in South Dakota has pulled together its resources and created a program to bring farming education to the classroom. It's called "Adopt-A-Farmer" and it's based on the simple idea of using technology and experts.
Steve Rommereim is a farmer who's stepped up to shoot videos of his farm teaching students about his job in Alcester, South Dakota. He met with those students on November 30 for a visit to see how much they're learning from his videos.
Rommereim welcomed a camera onto his farm to show a subject schools don't typically cover: farming.
"Learning is something we do every single day and that's one of the reasons I wanted to prove to you guys is what you're going through you need so work as hard as you can," said Rommereim in his video.
He wanted to prove his hard work is worth knowing about at a young age.
"There seems to be a real separation between food producers, farmers and our consumers because so many people haven't had the opportunity to be on the farm, see the farm and see what we do. I feel that there's a kind of lessening of confidence in what people are buying and eating every single day," explained Rommereim.
From the farm to the classroom, Steve takes those lessons from the videos they've been seeing and tells them more in school.
"How many people have been on a farm?" Rommereim asked to the class.
Steve spent nearly an hour talking to these 4th graders at Alcester Elementary and he had their attention.
"How much do they weigh when they get that big?" asked one fourth grader.
They got plenty of answers.
"That they have the confinement under it about all the manure is and stuff under it and they have to keep track of all of the stuff," said fourth grader, Logan Serck.
"We need hogs to make sausage and bacon and we need cows to make pork chops and steaks," said student, Alex Griffith.
Okay, so maybe they're not 100 percent accurate, but Steve definitely got them thinking.
"If my mom has bacon and sausage for breakfast, I'm gonna be like, oh I'm eating a pig. What am I doing?" said Bayleigh Peterson.
"It's really interesting to see where their brains are going, but you know, it is, I do believe that you make an impression that they do listen and they're learning things and it's fun. I really enjoyed it," said Rommereim. "There's a lot of things we can do and I think the videos and being able to represent all of this on film is well worth doing."
