Ag XPerience brings together farmers, students

The Rock Island County Ag Xperience is a story of the numbers and a story behind the numbers.

The event, which now covers three days, was started in 2005. This year's event involved more than 1,400 students in the five school districts in Rock Island County.

Students spend 18 minutes at each of five stations. Three FFA chapters and around 100 volunteers participate. Two major seed companies and a major farm implement manufacturer help sponsor the event, and their employees make presentations there.

And all of those numbers boil down to one fact.

"One thing we stress is if those students take one fact, one simple fact away from each of the stations, then they get five facts and then we've done our jobs," said DeAnne Bloomberg, county manager of the Rock Island County Farm Bureau.

Students, from grades first through fourth, learn about row crop and animal agriculture in the 18-minute presentations.

"I want you to think like a farmer now," said Gary Mueller.

Mueller operates a farrow-to-finish hog farm near Edgington. Only feet away from where a couple dozen Andalusia Grade School first-graders sat were two young pigs that Mueller brought along.

Mueller presented the students a challenge.

"The sow likes the temperatures at 65 degrees, but the baby pigs like the temperature at around 90 degrees, so how do I make it comfortable for both of them?" he asked.

"You can put blankets on the baby pigs?" one student guessed.

Mueller noted that was a good answer, but not the one he was seeking. Instead, he explained the use of heat lamps and how they provide for the comfort of the baby pigs without heating up the entire building.

"I have to take good care of my animals because that's how I make my money," said Mueller, who went on to delight students by telling them about a trait they have in common with weanling pigs – candy.

"One of my jobs is to make sure they eat the right stuff," said Mueller, who described how he adjusts the pigs' diets of corn, soy, sugar beet pulp along with vitamins and minerals.

He told the students he often adds chocolate candy bars to the diets of young pigs to get them interested in their feed and make it taste good.

Mueller's audience of students, parent-volunteers and teachers was enthusiastic, and he engaged them with questions that students readily spoke up to answer.

His approach of speaking at a level that both adults and students can understand, in terms and scenarios that non-farmers are familiar with, is one of the factors that makes the AgXperience a success.

"Sometimes you have to remember to bring it down to the students' level," Bloomberg said. "We have a lot of retired teachers helping us out who have helped us to develop the presentations."

The presentations include an up-close look at real, live farm animals, from small pigs to horses, sheep and dairy cattle.

"There's so many benefits there and for the kids to see things firsthand and understand that these are not cartoon animals and they are not pets is so important," Bloomberg said.

The Ag Xperience has been in a constant state of refining and improving since it started in 2005. The event came about as a result of teachers who completed the Farm Bureau Summer Ag Institute — and wanted more.

"There were teachers who kept calling saying we want to go visit a farm," Bloomberg said.

The logistics — Rock Island County has five school districts and three of those, East Moline, Moline and Rock Island are large, urban districts — made it impossible for a large number of students to visit separate beef, dairy, crop and sheep farms.

As an alternative, Bloomberg and her group decided to bring the farm to the city via the Rock Island County Fairgrounds. The program was funded its first year through the Moline Foundation, which paid for bus transportation for the 500 to 600 students who attended the two-day, 10-station event.

Since then, the event has undergone changes and refinements to make best use of time, talent and resources.

"In 2010, we started our first association with having the students see livestock and row crops at the fairgrounds, and then we brought in the history and machinery part at the John Deere Pavilion," Bloomberg said.

This year, the event was expanded to three days in order to accommodate the maximum number of students. Ag Xperience also has condensed stations down to five.

"We found there were more topics we wanted to cover. I think sometimes in agriculture we are such experts in our field that it can be pretty complicated for the non-farmer to understand the details," Bloomberg said.

The new format allows presenters to compare and contrast, for instance, beef cattle and dairy cattle. The event doesn't forget about the nutritional component even as it tackles food, feed and fiber farming.

"This year, we did a make-and-take showing the new food plate and talking about why we need farmers growing feed, fiber and fuel, but mostly to help us build strong bones and healthy bodies because I think we forget that's a main component that we are providing," Bloomberg said.

The students start out at the Rock Island County Fairgrounds and then move to the John Deere Pavilion. A veritable army of volunteers helps make the event a success and that includes John Deere employees.

"Deere said they look at this as global volunteerism so in each department if there are individuals who wanted to get involved with it and donate their time back to this cause of agriculture and farming, that matters so deeply to their customers, they would give those employees a day off," Bloomberg said.

Deere employees meet students at the John Deere Pavilion and serve as class escorts. FFA students from three chapters, including Rock Island County's single FFA chapter — at Rock Ridge High School — also help out.

In addition to Rock Ridge and Orion, this year Galva High School FFA assisted. Each chapter takes a day in order that students aren't out of school for too long.

"They've done a phenomenal job," said Bloomberg of the high school students.

The event also receives support from seed companies such as Wyffels Hybrids and Pioneer, who send presenters to talk about row crop agriculture.

The stations and a "make and take" station inspire conversation and questions and not just from students.

"I saw a parent walk into one of the livestock presentations holding their nose, and it was an adult. It's not so much us teaching the kids, but it's also to the parents who come along because it opens this dialogue about why we have farmers in this area, why agriculture still is the No. 1 export for the United States," Bloomberg said.

As planning starts for next year's event, Bloomberg and her team will critique this year's event in order to ensure that ag learning for students who may be many generations removed from the farm continues.

"This has definitely been a work in progress over the years, but it's been exciting to sit back and watch it build and watch the excitement build," she said.

http://www.agrinews-pubs.com/articles/farm-family-life/farm-family-life/default.asp?Article=DDF51325E5226B19F0410699A30EE2AF86B2FF8316B10DA6