By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The purpose of a spotlight is to highlight a specific area and draw attention to it. Chris Schalk, extension agent of agriculture and natural resources at the UK Extension office, said that was the purpose of Kentucky’s inaugural agriculture education week.
For Schalk, who was an agriculture teacher at Barren County High School and who has spent the whole of his professional life in agriculture, everyday is agriculture education week. This week-long initiative “shines a spotlight” on where people’s food comes from, which Schalk said is important as more and more generations separate from farming, and the plethora of professional opportunities available in the extensive field.
“A farmer and a veterinarian; those are the two jobs people think of when they think of agriculture,” Schalk said. “I turn the question around on them. I ask ‘what do you want to do?’ and I’ll tell you how it can fit into agriculture. You want to be a pilot, we’ve got [them]; you want to be in law enforcement, well there’s a significant portion of [law enforcement] dedicated to agriculture.”
Schalk also said agriculture education week was good because it introduced agriculture to innovative, creative and young minds who might otherwise not go into it.
“We’re doing more with less [land] every year, so we need that,” Schalk said.
This story will be updated at a later time.
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