Agriculture should be a part of N.L.’S high school curriculum, says student

‘Why would they even consider going into the field if they’re not taught about it?’

CORNER BROOK — When Newfoundland and Labrador went into lockdown last March, Abigail Penney started to question the food security of the province.

With that the young Pasadena woman realized the huge potential for agriculture in the province given that it has a lot of unused agricultural land.

It was something Penney said she found shocking.

“We have the land, and we have these resources but we’re not using them to their full potential.”

That is something that’s being recognized as a problem and worked on by the province which recently issued leases for three large-scale potato farms, including two on the west coast, to increase potato production.

The more the months of the pandemic wore on the more Penney thought about the issue.

While volunteering at a farm camp for children over the summer she started to realize how little children knew about where their food came from.

“But they were all so happy to learn about it and get that hands on experience that comes along with agriculture.”

This past fall she entered her first year of the bioveterinary science program at Dalhousie University’s agriculture campus. Studying online from home, she wished she’d been exposed to the world of agriculture before she began university.

In the first semester she took an introductory agriculture ecosystem course that explored the different types

of agriculture, soils, production systems and problems in agriculture.

Now as one of four finalists in Canada World Youth’s Innovation Challenge, Penney is studying the benefits of, and advocating for, the inclusion of agriculture and agri-food programs in Newfoundland and Labrador’s education curriculum, particularly at the high school level.

“I think there’s so many topics that can be covered and they tie into both the science, the curriculum, the technology aspects, maybe even the skilled trade parts. So, it ties into a lot of different subject areas and provides a lot of hands-on experience,” she said.

The challenge will run for four to five months and while Penney would like to be able to develop a curriculum, she knows it’s not possible in that time. Her focus instead will be on opening the conversation more and hopefully getting some wheels turning in the right direction.

To do so she’s reached out to educators and curriculum creators and has connected with the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture’s Agriculture in the Classroom program.

She’s hopeful that she’ll be able to develop some partnerships in working towards a common goal.

“One of the first steps we can take is just educating our youth. Why would they even consider going into the field if they’re not taught about it?”

Chelsea Foley is the coordinator of Agriculture in the Classroom.

The program has resources available for Grades 7 to Level 3, but Foley said matching them with the curriculum is the hard part.

“We have all these resources, and they match with certain curriculums but as you know in high school there’s certain core courses you have to take to graduate and a lot of those don’t include agriculture issues.”

And some courses where it could fit in are either electives, meaning students don’t have to take them, or not offered in every high school.

Foley said Agriculture in the Classroom does have resources on making informed food choices and careers in agriculture for high schools.

But this year getting that information out there is harder because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She can’t make school visits and teachers have a lot on their plates with just getting the things they need to do done.

She said it really needs to be part of the core curriculum.

“Food security is a huge issue in Newfoundland. If that boat stops then we’ve got three days of fresh food in the stores. So, it’s a huge issue.”

She said we need to be growing more food and younger people need to know how to do that.

Having agriculture in the curriculum would also expose students to other potential careers in the areas of soil science, plant science, plant pathology and plant biology.

“There’s a whole list of scientists behind a farmer.”

Foley has had meetings with the Department of Education and heads of social studies, English and French on the issue and said Penney’s idea to create a curriculum that has agriculture in it is amazing.

“That would be dream number one. We’d love to be there,” said Foley.