For many children, seeing where their food comes from or experiencing life on a working farm is becoming increasingly rare.
Pātoka-based farmer and veterinarian Sally Newall hopes to help remedy that with a new on-farm learning facility that she plans to open to school groups later this spring, after the calving and lambing season.
Newall already uses her Kiwi Country Kids platform on Instagram and Facebook to give people a glimpse of day-to-day farming. But watching her own children become confused about what was real online prompted her to think more about the value of experiencing farming firsthand.
“If you get people out on the farm, they’re going to make their own opinion of what you’re doing … it’s kind of come a little bit through the advent of AI, I guess, and just going, ‘Right, we’ve got to give people real experiences these days’,” she said.
The purpose-built on-farm facility is part of Newall’s working farm near Napier. The shed is divided into three sections, with three calf bays on one side, a milking area on the other and a larger enclosed event space in the middle. The event space will also be available for workshops, meetings and training days.
Visiting groups will experience the everyday activities of a working farm, with what they see and do changing with the seasons. Children could feed chickens and pigs, collect eggs, see calves, visit sheep and lambs, work in the vegetable garden and take part in native planting.
“We’re not a petting zoo, so we won’t have pet lambs all throughout the year. It’s a real working farm,” she said.
“It’s literally going to be taking groups around showing them what I do every morning and they’ll be helping me to care for the animals, to feed the animals, to do every job that I do on a normal morning.”
Animal welfare and husbandry will be a particular focus, drawing on Newall’s veterinary background. Sustainability is also integrated into the farm’s daily operations, including native planting, composting and food production. Seventy-nine solar panels and batteries now provide power for the farm and the new shed.
Newall is also involved with Farmer Time New Zealand and has advocated for more opportunities for primary school children to experience farming.
“I really feel that’s where you ignite the spark of interest,” she said.
“By the time they’ve got to secondary school, if they’re not interested in farming, it’s going to be harder to hook them in at that point.”
Primary school children will be the main focus of the educational programme, but Newall plans to open the facility to a wider range of groups, including retirement homes, tourists and agricultural businesses.
Commercial hire of the facility will also help keep the cost of school visits down.
“I’m obviously not going to charge school groups very much to come on the farm because schools can’t afford to pay very much to do outings,” she said.
“I really want them [the school-aged children] to know where the food comes from. I think every kid should have the opportunity to get out on a farm and ask any questions they want to.”
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Read the original article here: https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/news/new-on-farm-learning-facility-aims-to-connect-kids-with-their-food