Hands-on programs allow rural students to raise livestock that will end up in the schools' cafeterias

Budget cuts and declining student populations are leading some rural school districts to implement hands-on agriculture classes, where student-raised livestock and student-grown produce eventually turn up in the school cafeteria, Steven Yaccino reports for The New York Times. "A high school in Montague, Mich., has student-raised chicken on its menu. Another, in Willits, Calif., serves campus-bred pork. Pupils in other districts throughout the Midwest are growing crops or garden produce for a letter grade before eating the fruits of their labor when the lunch bell rings." (NYT photo by Maddie McGarvey: Near Hagerstown, Ind., Nettle Creek School Corp. Supt. William Doering visits a hands-on agriculture program)

Stefonie Sebastian, education specialist at Future Farmers of America, told Yaccino, “As budgets keep getting cut, we keep looking to more creative ways. Agriculture programs used to be on the chopping block. Now we’re seeing it as a way to get things done at the school.”

In the Nettle Creek school district in Hagerstown, Ind., which has lost about 66 of its 1,000 students since 2010, and was forced to cut $350,000 from its budget, a hands-on agriculture program is paying off big time, Yaccino writes. The school's cattle program is "expected to save at least $2,000 in annual cafeteria costs and expand vocational training," and schools will have more meat than they can consume. That means schools can sell the excess meat to purchase more livestock.

"In lieu of a classroom, students built a fence around 10 acres of school land," Yaccino writes. "The district is still looking to hire a new teacher to run the cattle course, which will be open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. If all goes as planned, the first herd of six Angus cross and one Hereford—bought with donations from local banks and members of the community—will be slaughtered this fall with the help of a butcher who volunteered to stock school freezers." (Read more)