Jan 11, 2024
By Rick McNary
Are you looking for fun, educational and outdoorsy ways to spend time with your grandkids? Although you might have grown up on or around a farm and have your own garden, there are a surprising number of children who don’t know where their food comes from.
My wife, Christine, and I began taking our grandchildren on farm tours around Butler County a few years back. We even had t-shirts made that read, “McNary Cousins Farm and Ranch Tour.”
Below are ten tips you can use to show your grandchildren how their food is grown.
1) Take them on a farm tour
There are many farms and ranches within driving distance that are happy to have you stop in for a visit. You can find a farm near you on the website of Shop Kansas Farms. Another way is to contact your local County Farm Bureau Coordinator. A County Farm Bureau (one in all 105 Kansas counties) is separate from Farm Bureau Financial Services (insurance) and is comprised for farmers and ranchers in that county. You can find that information here.
2) Take them to the county and/or state fair
County fairs are exciting opportunities to engage your grandchildren in fun and educational ways into agriculture. You can make it more enjoyable by doing a little pre-work with them by coming up with a list of questions in a scavenger hunt format. For example:
- What’s the biggest animal there?
- What’s the smallest animal?
- How many kinds of animals can we find?
- What was your favorite 4-H project?
- Woodworking?
- Sewing?
- Photography?
3) Sign them up in 4-H
Young parents are busy and often don’t have time for yet another evening activity with their kids. Step in and help them out and take your grandchild to 4-H. There are all kinds of projects and leadership training that will interest your grandchild and you can help them with it.
4) Encourage them to join FFA if it’s available in their school
5) Take them to a farmers market
It’s a good time to talk about how much food is wasted because people won’t buy imperfect produce in the grocery store. Talk to them, or even engage them, in the idea of gleaning, such as After the Harvest.
6) Buy them books
Kansas Farm Bureau has excellent resources for you to help your grandkids learn.
7) Visit a county extension office and agent
Kansas State University is a land-grant university, which began with President Lincoln’s idea to have a college in each state that was dedicated to agriculture. KSU makes all their wonderful research and knowledge available to the public through county extension offices and agents. These people are a wealth of knowledge and love sharing their information with you – that’s why they are there.
8) Start a garden
Kids love playing in dirt and a garden gives you an opportunity to teach a variety of life lessons interwoven with the joy of watching a seed bear fruit.
9) Talk to a local butcher
This is a great opportunity to teach your grandchildren about the importance of meat and nutrition in our diets. Talk to your local grocery store butcher, or better yet, take them to a local meat processor near you.
10) Check out the Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom
They have tremendous resources. They love to talk to people, especially kids through their Ag in the Classroom series, about how food is grown.
As a grandparent, we just assume our grandkids know how their food is grown. However, a recent survey found that 16 million people in America believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Children are more and more removed from the land and you have an excellent opportunity to do something fun, educational and outdoorsy with your grandkids to teach them where their food comes from.
This article appeared first in Kansas Living Magazine.