Urban Students Learn About Agriculture

By Joyce Lane, Soil Conservationist, NRCS, Huntsville, Alabama

Students from Mrs. Duncan’s class of the Academy for Science and Foreign Language (ASFL), a local magnet school, were filled with excitement as they listened to visitors who came to their school to talk about agriculture.

Jeannie Reeves from North Carolina, shared information on Cotton.  Reeves has been employed by Cotton Incorporated for many years.

Ms. Reeves told the students that cotton shows up in many things that we use daily such as the casings on hot dogs, money, snacks, sunglasses, the clothes that we wear, plus many other items.

Items circulated around the class room for students to get a close-up look at included a cotton seed and a replica of a bale of cotton when it is ready for market.

Joyce Lane, NRCS Soil Conservationist from Madison County, told the students about winter cover crops and their importance, rotation crops, planting dates for winter cover crops, and harvest dates.

The students learned that cotton at one time had been "King" in North Alabama, but had lost its crown due to high production costs.  Farmers plant more acres of less production cost crops such as soybeans (38,060 ac.), wheat (21,497 ac.), corn (17,089 ac.), grain sorghum (27.2 ac.), and oats (23.5 ac.).  Cotton came in second place with 25,990 ac. being planted.

Kathy Walker, SWCD District Administrative Clerk in Madison County, also gave a presentation. She showed the students about a dozen different kinds of seed that included cotton, field corn, wheat, wheat straw, canola, soybeans, peanuts, popcorn, sorghum, and others.

Soil samples were circulated for the students to observe the different soils that grow crops.

The class participated in an activity showing the importance of importing and exporting goods with neighboring countries. Kathy said it is very important to try and keep a good relationship with other countries because have products that we need.

The students were encouraged to start reading the labels on foods to see what ingredients are in the product that they consumed.

The students were very enlightened by the presentations and gained much knowledge that will useful in future endeavors.

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