Exploring the land: Fourth-graders visit Ohio County farm to learn about agriculture

Sep. 2—Luttrell Farms in Olaton experienced an increase in folks exploring the land during the 2022 Ohio County Youth Agriculture Days this week.

The two-day event that began Wednesday invited fourth-grade classes in the Ohio County Schools district to the farm.

The event celebrated its 26th year; a feat that farm owner Darren Luttrell is still surprised by.

"Over 8,000 kids have gone through this," he said with a smile Thursday. "...It's almost like it's one of these things that we just kind of do now. It's in our yearly plan. We just know that these last couple weeks of August, we shut down everything else and we get the place cleaned up and equipment out that we normally don't see out this time of year, and we just plan on it."

The event is planned and implemented by the Ohio County Cooperative Extension Service and Ohio County 4-H and includes 10 educational stations for students to attend for 12-minute sessions, led by different entities such as the extension service, the Kentucky Soybean Association, Kentucky Division of Forestry and Perdue Farms, among others.

"It's still great that we're still able to continue this on," said Gary Druin, extension agent for 4-H youth development. "It's a wonderful program for the fourth-graders. They get to learn agriculture on a real working farm and get to interact with a lot of agricultural leaders in our community and around the state."

Topics range from learning about how corn is grown, food products and its importance on health, how soybeans play a pivotal role in everyday life, soil erosion and learning about the equipment farmers use throughout the agricultural field.

There's also hand-on opportunities, like sampling pumpkin pancakes and learning fun facts while petting baby chickens, horses, pigs and other farm animals.

Additionally, all classes get a chance to attend an 11th station that has an emphasis on electrical safety and its potential dangers.

Seth Southard, superintendent of Ohio County Schools, has attended the event close to 20 years collectively in his roles as both a teacher and administrator.

He points out how the event correlates with the students' curriculum in school.

"... A lot of things that they're learning today and the (vocabulary) ... are in those science units that they will be held accountable for later on this year," he said. "It kind of goes hand-in-hand, and they actually get an opportunity to not just hear it, but to see it."

The event has brought people back years later, but sometimes in a different role.

Mikayla Fields, vice president of the Ohio County FFA, attended this program as a student at Wayland Alexander Elementary School in Hartford.

On Thursday, she was helping lead one of the sessions and passing knowledge onto others that may follow in her footsteps.

"It's really cool," she said. "Since I grew up with an agriculture background, it's kind of different to see kids that don't know much about it, and helping them learn even just simple things about agriculture is really important to me."

Both Luttrell and Druin hope the event expands the kids' minds that agriculture has a number of different facets and hope they develop an "understanding and appreciation" for the field.

"Being in agriculture is not just being a farmer," Luttrell said. "...There's so many opportunities out here for anyone that wants to work in an ag field. You may be the local butcher at Meijer or something — you're involved in agriculture. People don't always think of that ..."

"There is a producer and there's a network behind all the food supply and everything; and not just food — corn and soybean make a lot of the products that we use today, (like) some of your bioplastics and stuff like that," Druin said. "(I hope the students have) an understanding of the life cycle and how important agriculture is to our daily lives."

And even though the preparation for the event may be tiresome, Luttrell finds moments that help him remember it's well worth it.

"A lady tagged me in a post on Facebook today, and she said two of her kids were here yesterday and she said, 'I've heard so much, and they were so excited when they came home' and said that's all they talked about all night; and they got up this morning talking about it and wish they were coming back ...," Luttrell said. "(Those are) the kind of comments that make you want to keep doing it."