The FARMS (Farming, Agriculture, and Resource Management for Sustainability) Program, created in 1993 by Winters farmers Craig and Julie McNamara, has enjoyed five and a half years of educating urban, suburban and rural youth about the connection between sustainable agriculture and science and natural resource conservation, and is looking forward to expanding the program throughout California. Thanks to SAREP funding for 1999-2000 ($17,500), the FARMS Program is creating a promotional video and instructional manual for groups interested in implementing the FARMS Program model in their own communities. [SAREP also granted $15,000 to the FARMS Program in 1996-97.]

Since 1993 students from Yolo, Sacramento and Marin counties have been part of the pilot program; in 1998 two new sites were added (Sonoma and Orange counties), while Butte County started a program in the fall of 1999. The FARMS program has been very successful in fostering collaboration among many players in California agriculture and education circles, and has connected more than 200 students and teachers to the issues surrounding sustainable agriculture. The addition of two new sites in 1998 and the resulting increase in interest in the program has shown that the FARMS model is transferable to other areas in California and the U.S.

Unique Partnership

The FARMS Program began in the Yolo-Sacramento region in 1993 as a unique partnership between Sierra Orchards (the McNamara family farm), The University of California, Davis, the Yolo County Resource Conservation District, and the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom. The program has been expanded through two grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to include sites in Orange, Riverside, and Sonoma counties. Continuing the FARMS model, each of these sites blends agriculture, education, business, and environmental organizations to create a special partnership that supports and implements the FARMS Program. These organizations include: in Sonoma County, the Sotoyome Resource Conservation District (RCD), the Sonoma Farm Bureau, Santa Rosa Junior College, the Shone Farm, and Denner Ranches; in Orange County, the Orange County Farm Bureau, South Coast Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D), Natural Resources Conservation District (NRCS), Orange County Produce, and California Polytechnic University, Pomona. In Riverside, the South Coast RC&D, the NRCS, Cal Poly Pomona, and the Riverside-Corona RCD all work together to support their FARMS Program.

The FARMS Program provides an opportunity for 30 high school students at each program site and their teachers to learn about the interrelationships between science, agriculture, and natural resource conservation through hands-on, real-life experiences. Through an application process, the 30 students are chosen from five different high schools in the region. The FARMS Program stresses diversity and includes rural, urban and suburban high schools. Approximately 60 percent of the students are considered urban/suburban, and 40 percent rural. The number of urban students participating in FARMS is increasing, however, which exposes many participants to farming in a way they have never experienced: up-close and personal.

“Most of our students are very removed from farming, yet it’s a key economic component of California,” says Davis High School science teacher Linda Baker, who attends many of the FARMS field days. “It’s a chance for students to see what farming is all about, and to learn about different efforts to save and sustain the environment.”

Hands-on Learning

The FARMS curriculum is unique, exposing participants to the needs of progressive farmers and ranchers who are working to meet consumer demands, enhance profitability, and live as stewards of the land. Over nine months, students attend monthly field days that provide this exposure through the use of hands-on, interactive workshops. The program centers on a lead farmer who opens his or her farming operation to the eyes, ears, and hands of FARMS participants. At Sierra Orchards in Winters, students participate in activities such as the walnut harvest, cover crop planting, soil testing, and owl-box building.

“One of our goals is to take students who may not have visited rural America much, and acquaint them with the fabric of family farming,” says Craig McNamara. “Students spend a night with a farm family as part of the project.”

In addition to exposure to the family farm way of life, FARMS presents agriculture as a career choice to students, and demonstrates the science behind agriculture in each workshop.

“We want to take high school students who may not have thought of the science of agriculture as a possible career, and expose them to what we are doing in sustainable agriculture,” McNamara says. “These are practices that will sustain farming well into the next millennium.”

“One of our objectives is to show students what it takes to operate a family farm today,” he says.

He notes that one of the requirements of the program is to develop a research project dealing with sustainable agricultural practices. By having the students implement a research project, they can see that agriculture is an industry based on science and they are better able to understand the decisions that farmers must make on a daily basis.

To help FARMS students develop their projects, they are matched with mentors in the agricultural and environmental profession, such as NRCS scientists, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors, university and college faculty and graduate students, wildlife biologists, and watershed restoration specialists. These mentors teach students the basic scientific method: How to develop and test a hypothesis, how to collect and present data, and how to make conclusions and recommendations. Finally, the students learn the communication skills necessary to present their projects at a closing seminar.

“This is stuff I would never have learned in a classroom,” says Nate Reinking, a past FARMS participant and a senior at Davis Senior High.

“I didn’t have an interest in these subjects before I started (with the FARMS Program). They’ve turned out to be very interesting projects.”

Promotes Further Education

The use of mentors meets two other FARMS objective: promoting post-secondary education, and introducing students to agricultural and environmental careers. The FARMS partnership deliberately includes a post-secondary institution; whether or not they attend UC Davis, Cal Poly Pomona, or Santa Rosa Junior College, FARMS students have been exposed to agriculture and are ready to build on a strong scientific foundation. Mentors help to break down the “ivory tower” perceptions that high school students have of colleges and universities. By working closely with a professor or professional in the agricultural and environmental sciences, students not only discover the variety of fulfilling careers choices available, but learn that college professors are people, too.

The success of the FARMS Program, first in the Yolo-Sacramento region, and now in three other areas of California, has led to a surge of interest from people and organizations interested in agricultural education around the state. The FARMS leaders are excited about the role that this program can play in educating California’s youth about our farming heritage and our future in the next millennium. With 10 million K-12 students expected in California schools by the year 2010 and less than two percent of our population living on farms, the FARMS Program can play a major role in educating students about the importance of agriculture in each of our lives.

For more information about the FARMS Program, contact Mary Kimball, project coordinator, or Katy Pye, executive director, at the Yolo County Resource Conservation District, (530) 662-2037 ext. 3; topquail@yolorcd.ca.gov;  mckimball@ucdavis.edu.