Farmers FACE up to Schools
FACE (Farming and Countryside Education) announces that Farmers are queuing up to use the new Syngenta supported FACE/DEFRA Teachers' Information CD available from FACE in order to forge stronger links with schools. Chairman of the Sustainable Farming Food and Implementation Group, Sir Don Curry has endorsed the CD by requesting one for his own usage.
"I encourage school visits to my own farm and as a farmer have found the Information Pack to be of great personal value in preparing for these. The benefits to farmers and schools alike are entirely positive and the FACE initiative should be supported wholeheartedly" he commented.
Head of FACE, Bill Graham has been overwhelmed at the response to the CD," "The CD's are flying off the shelves and we are delighted with the response that we've received."
In the light of recent research commissioned by FACE into the inadequacies of children's knowledge about food and farming, farmers are seizing the initiative and committing to helping schools reverse the trend" he continued.
The CD was originally developed by FACE in conjunction with DEFRA (The Department for the Environment Food and Rural affairs). The idea was to produce a structured package of information to provide to schools in order to help farmers who are new entrants to the Education Access option of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS).
With funding from Syngenta and approval from DEFRA, the CD Rom is now available to all farmers and not just those involved in CSS.
Sarah Harvey Speck from Syngenta, one of the supporters of the Teachers' Information CD, said, "Nowadays, most school children think their food comes from supermarkets and know very little about how it is actually produced. Syngenta believes that this important initiative will help reveal to children across the UK the real source of food and how farmers work produces a consistent supply of high quality, nutritious food, grown in a sustainable way."
FACE and DEFRA are targeting farmers or their advisors on the basis that they can use the CD Rom to enable them to produce a pack for School's enabling them to describe the details of booking and planning a farm visit. Packs may be personalised to the relevant Farmer to avoid having to start
from scratch.
Alison Huish of visitor attraction Marsh Farm Country Park in Essex ordered her copy of the pack as a resource to check their own Teachers Pack against, "I think it is a fantastic facility for farms who are possibly not set up to produce their own packs from scratch. They can easily tailor it to meet their specific needs. At Marsh Farm we are working on our own pack and using the FACE CD as a resource and as a set of guidelines to make sure that we don't miss anything. In particular we are delighted with the new drawings in the Info pack and intend to incorporate them into our own pack."
Using the resource in a variety of different ways, farmers will be able to: " Create a new Teachers' Information pack for their farm " State where Teachers can find further resources " Understand what Key Stage 1 is and what are the objectives for a farm visit " Learn how to explain and promote what they have available on their farm " Develop a plan for optimising the facilities on offer at their farm.
