By NANCY VORIS
Indiana Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — In a sea of 52 John Deere green T-shirts, urban high school students converged on education-oriented Fair Oaks Dairy in northern Indiana as they witnessed a calf’s birth, toured the barns of a 3,000-cow facility and watched the intricate clockwork of cows being milked on a carousel.

“We’re hitting the preconceived attitudes of students about agriculture,” said Rich Bailey, a science teacher at Lawrence North High School and a former agriculture teacher and FFA advisor in Indiana schools.

“We’re trying to make the basic connections with them, that the milk doesn’t start cold in a plastic jug but starts warm from a living thing.”

The students are part of a new education initiative called the Hoosier Agribusiness and Science Initiative, a partnership between state government and Ivy Tech Community College. It focuses on experience-based learning through activities such as apprentice projects and field trips to agricultural business, and emphasizes career and leadership development to help prepare them for college.

The pilot program for the three-week class was with the Lawrence Early College High School, a public charter school. The first-generation, college-bound students were exposed to animal, plant and soil science as well as horticulture, agribusiness management and landscaping, taught at Ivy Tech’s Lawrence campus.
In addition, field trips to Dow AgroSciences, Red Gold and Fair Oaks farms helped students to see those principles put into action. Speakers, such as Jennifer Dennis from Purdue’s horticulture department and Sarah Yeager of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, engaged students in discussions about future careers and what it would take to work in a job in agribusiness.

Amy Lane, 15, especially liked talking with Dennis.

“It was interesting. I learned a lot about horticulture and farmers’ markets from her,” Lane said. “It’s something I might want to go into.”

Moncef Laouini, 15, was motivated by the field trip to Dow AgroSciences because of his interest in engineering and the business aspects of the company.

Breanna Allender also liked Dow because of her interest in science and farming. “I liked seeing how they were working with plants and genetics, like they can put a chemical in plants to repel insects.”
“These kids knew that farming was corn and beans, but they didn’t realize there were specialty areas,” Bailey said. “This class puts a fresh face on agriculture with an urban aspect.”

Those with preconceived ideas about quaint little farms with a red barn learned how a family farm can evolve into a high-tech operation. Fair Oaks Dairy oversees 30,000 dairy cows located at 10 separate sites with approximately 3,000 head per site. The cows are milked three times per day, producing 250,000 gallons of milk daily.

The large staff includes veterinarians, nutritionists and herdsmen.
Elizabeth Merriman, 16, is one of the few members of the class with a farming background. Her father grew up on a farm in Hamilton County, but moved into Indianapolis to work because of allergies. Her aunt is a veterinarian in Rochester.

Merriman was glad to have the class to learn more about agriculture, and found the dairy operation interesting, especially milk production and marketing techniques. She also enjoyed hearing about FFA from past Indiana FFA President Tyler Tenbarge, one of the speakers.

In fact, the youths showed such an interest in the FFA organization that a chapter is in the works at the urban school. Bailey will return to his FFA roots as the chapter’s advisor.

One opportunity for the new FFA chapter is to join with Manual High School’s chapter at a booth at Indianapolis’s Black Expo, showing visitors the opportunities in agribusiness.

Dr. Kay Harmless, director of the Lawrence Early College High School, said the program achieved its goals and hopes to see it expand to other Ivy Tech campuses.

“We started with urban kids with no exposure to agriculture and changed their minds on traditional farming to expand it towards agribusiness,” Harmless said. “It is so smart, to reach down and grab the students who will be future leaders.”

This farm news was published in the June 27, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.