DANVILLE — Staci Disney-Walker knows a thing or two about farming. She was raised on a farm, had grandparents who were farmers and is married to a farmer.

Walker, agriculture literacy coordinator for the Vermilion County Farm Bureau, has the responsibility of educating students in Vermilion County on the importance of agriculture.

“Today, you have students who are four or five generations removed from agriculture,” Walker said. “Some of these students only know that milk comes from County Market or Walmart.

“A lot of them don’t know that the cotton that makes their jeans and t-shirts is grown as a crop,” Walker said.

Walker’s job is to provide teaching materials and ideas to county teachers so that they can educate students on the importance of agriculture in the world.

“One out four jobs in this country is agriculture related,” added Walker. “There are 300 occupations that are agriculture related right now.”

Walker said she is proud to be involved in educating students about agriculture.

“Students don’t realize that farmers in the United States feed people all over the world,” Walker said. “This country has the safest, most consistent and most desirable agricultural crops in the world.”

In her job, Walker visits schools all over the county. She will make presentations to classes as well as provide material to the teachers for them to use in the classroom.

“Our teaching material is divided into what we call “units”, explained Walker. “Each unit covers a different agriculture commodity, such as corn, soybeans, cotton, hogs and even Christmas trees.”

Walker delivers these units to the teachers for their use over a twoto four-week period.

Every August, Walker will have an open house for teachers to show them what units are available for the school year.

Walker attends a National Agriculture in the Classroom conference each year where she learns new ideas for teaching students about agriculture.

The Agriculture in the Classroom program was started in 1981 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to educate students about the importance of agriculture.

The USDA allows each state to operate the program independently. In Illinois, the state decides which organization will handle the program. In Vermilion County, the Vermilion County Farm Bureau is charged with that responsibility.

“There are some funds that come from the federal government to operate the program,” Walker said. “In Illinois, the State Board of Education disperses those funds, but it is not enough to fully fund the literacy program, so the state relies on donations from agribusiness sponsors as well as corn and soybean growers associations. The IAA Foundation also has fundraisers to help fund the program.”

Walker’s job keeps her busy. In 2009, she made 235 presentations to different classrooms. She said about eight presentations is the most she can do in one school day.

Vermilion County has some 13,000 students attending school. In 2009, Walker made presentations to 9,500 of those students.

Part of Walker’s plans for the future is the development of a mobile field trip.

“Most of the school districts have had to curtail their funding of field trips,” Walker explained. “I would like to develop a trailer to be equipped with different displays of agricultural products including some livestock.”

Walker’s idea is to take this mobile field trip around to county schools to give the students a more hands on approach to understanding the importance of agriculture.

FYI

The Agriculture in the Classroom program was started in 1981 by the United States Department of Agriculture. Each individual state decides how it will operate the program and who will run the program in each county. In Vermilion County, the Vermilion County Farm Bureau handles that responsibility.