Over 700 kids came through the doors at the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre to learn about agriculture (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

Education and Agriculture

Prince Albert Exhibition Centre hosts Agriculture Education event

Apr 11, 2019 | 2:58 PM

The Prince Albert Exhibition Association hosted over 700 kids for its annual AgEd showcase.

Katie Wilson, who is a director with the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre and organizes the event told paNOW the showcase is a blend of entertainment and education.

“The goal of AgEd is really trying to bridge our urban and rural gap for a lot of these kids. They get the chance to see animals and they get the chance to learn about some nutrition and they also get to learn about soils,” she said. “We have kids, all the way from Bruno, West Central, Christopher Lake, Shellbrook, then all of our city schools, they have an opportunity to come.”

When it comes to exposing kids to agriculture, Wilson said it is important that they have the knowledge about where their food comes from and allow them to ask questions about the industry.

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Having events like AgEd are especially important in the current day and age according to Wilson as there are less people who are living out in rural areas and making a living as farmers.

“Even with our rural schools that come, Red Wing, Spruce Home, Christopher Lake, the schools that used to have all the farm kids in them, these kids, they live out in the country but they don’t necessarily come from farming backgrounds,” she said.

Wilson added such events as well provide the chance to teach people about some forms of agriculture that people may not know about.

“Lots of people don’t realize there is a huge market for goat meat in the province of Saskatchewan,” she said.

Wilson has plans to grow the event, but said there are some time restrictions for learning stations.

One of the stations educating kids about hog farming (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

Farm Credit Canada had a booth set up to teach children more about the challenges of farming.

“We’re teaching kids about crop and grain. The point of them is to plant a wheat field, but before they can do that we have to figure out what kind of obstacles farmers can be up against to plant their wheat field,” Jodie Guse, a relationship manager with the company, said.

“It’s huge to us, because throughout the whole day, kids are learning where their food comes from, so it’s not just coming from the supermarket. You know it starts from the ground up,” she said.

(Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

Editor’s note: this story has been corrected to reflect over 700 school kids visited the AgEd. An earlier version incorrectly stated over 300 kids attended.

MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn