(La Porte County, IN) - Over 900 school children in La Porte County learned more about where their food comes from and the work involved in getting it to their dinner tables.

 

This occurred Wednesday and Thursday during the annual Ag Days put on by La Porte County Farm Bureau.  The children all in the fourth grade were bused from their respective schools to the event inside the Community Building at the La Porte County Fairgrounds.

 

The children spent about 10 minutes at each of the nearly one dozen stations learning about things like milk production and the process involved in getting food to consumers from start to finish.

 

Dairy Farmer Frank Minich informed the students just one dairy cow drinks the equivalent of a “bathtub full of water” daily and can produce as much as 10 to 12 gallons of milk every 24 hours.  Minich said it takes about eight hours to milk all of his 800 head of Holstein cows and nearly five hours to feed them at his farm near Kingsbury.  The milking and feeding are done twice a day.

 

Minich also revealed he uses gummy bears from a candy factory in Merrillville in his grain mixture as a nutritional supplement, a longstanding practice in the dairy industry.  He said the gummy bears are made available because they didn’t make the candy maker’s grade for quality, but they contain sugars that mirror the ones in corn and are less costly.

 

“It’s a smart business move for us to do that,” he said.

 

Farmer Jeff Mitzner of Wanatah played a video showing how freshly harvested cucumbers are loaded into trucks and shipped to plants to be turned into pickles.

 

“They are going to be put in a can or a jar like that for you to use to buy at the grocery store,” he said.

 

The video also displayed how tomatoes are planted and harvested then put through a shaker to remove any rocks or other debris before hauled away to food plants. 

 

Farmer Paul Herrold from the Westvile area said the students in his presentation seemed most surprised that flour comes from the grinding of wheat.  He also told how his soybeans a few years ago were taken to an elevator in Union Mills for shipment to China.

 

“Literally, crops grown here in La Porte County could end up anywhere in the entire world,” he said.

Each student was also given a chance to pet a lamb born just a week ago and other animals like a chicken. 

 

La Porte County Farm Bureau President Mark Parkman said the event is an important learning experience since a vast majority of school children nowadays don’t live on a farm.

 

Teacher Linda Nelson, who brought her fourth grade students from Kingsford Heights Elementary School, agreed.

 

“We are surrounded by farm land but I don’t think they really understand what that entails and what it takes to maintain and run a farm.  It’s a great opportunity for them to get that,” she said.

 

Jessica Frankowski, a fourth grade teacher at Hailmann Elementary School in La Porte, said the event helps students know where their food comes from and everything involved on a farm in caring for the animals.

 

“I think it allows kids to understand parts of agriculture they don’t always get exposed to,” she said.