The Year of Food and Farming is a ‘breath of fresh air that can reinvigorate the knowledge, health and well-being of England’s school children’, an NFU leader has said.
Richard Hezlet, NFU East Midlands’ regional director, said that the nation’s farms are one of the ‘greatest educational resources we’ve got’, adding that the scheme would give children hands-on experience of the countryside and all it has to offer, helping them to make informed choices about what they eat.
“I see it as a breath of fresh air, blowing through the classrooms of England, bringing new understanding and a new appreciation of how food is produced, how the countryside is managed and how we can eat more healthily,” he said.
As a contribution to the initiative, the NFU has produced teachers’ packs to help teachers make the most of farming as an educational resource.
The ‘Why Farming Matters’ packs were produced for the union by the educational charity, Farming and Countryside Education, with over 5,000 having been distributed since their launch at the end of June.
Hezlet added: “This Year is for children, but it is important for farmers and growers as well. We need to promote agriculture and horticulture as clean, kind, caring, go-ahead and vitally important industries, and where better to start on that than with the consumers of tomorrow?”
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