What started as a one-day dairy event has evolved into an interactive two-day hands-on opportunity for Brant county students to learn more about how the food they eat is produced.
More than one thousand grade five students, teachers and parents from Brant county-area schools visited the Burford Fairgrounds for the 27th annual Bite of Brant.
This year’s event was held April 12 and 13.
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Why it matters: Bite of Brant offers students an interactive opportunity to learn about agriculture.
Twenty stations within two buildings offer students the chance to learn about Ontario’s agri-food industry, including soil health, crop and milk production, honey and cider production, farm equipment, and agriculture industry job possibilities.
Many stations offered hands-on opportunities such as pressing apples to make cider, comparing food costs, food safety and nutrition, milling flour, wool production, and ‘milking’ a model cow.
Live animals included sheep, goats, and dairy and beef calves.
This year’s event was the second time Grade 4 and 5 Burford Elementary School teacher Tara Oakley has participated.
“I think that it’s great for students to hear about where their food comes from and all that goes into producing it behind the scenes,” she said.
Also important, said Oakley, was how Bite of Brant shows them that agriculture isn’t necessarily all about food. “They can look basketballs and footballs and know that OK, these are made from hides.”
She also likes that the event connects students to the idea that “it’s from the ground up.” After visiting the soil station, for example, she said students make the connection between what’s in the soil and how crops grow.
“The presenters here do a great job, even the ones that don’t have live animals, they make it very interactive with games and I was super impressed with how well they hold the kids attention all morning long,” she said.
Students had 11 minutes to visit each station, manned by local farmer volunteers. Another volunteer rang a cowbell to let the students know when it was time to move groups.
Each building had 10 stations, and each class was split into two groups. Due to time constraints, each student group only toured one building.
Brianne Hunter, a Grade 5 teacher at Burford Elementary, said although the area is plentiful with farms, “there is a disconnect between where food comes from and what they see in the grocery store.”
She feels the event encourages students to ask a lot of questions. “They want more information, and promoting questions in young children is important.”
Hunter also felt the event promoted healthy eating habits for her students and that it tied in nicely with the Ontario curriculum focus on health as well as social studies.
Karen Bradish, a Grade 5 teacher at Walter Gretzy Elementary School in Brantford, agrees there are opportunities to link with the curriculum. She noted how learning how the tractor on display is powered ties in with learning about different energy sources, and the development of a chick in the egg, as she said her class has talked on a basic level about human development.
The only negative comment from each teacher Farmtario spoke with was that they wished the event could be longer, as not every student could see each station.
But, they all agreed that it promoted good discussions upon returning to the classroom.
Not everyone gets the exact same experience, but they all had a good experience and it forces them to talk and share what they learned. “Everyone learns something,” said Oakley.
Bite of Brant got its start after a small group of farmers and volunteers wanted to have an educational event ahead of the 1990 International Plowing Match (held in Brant county) as a way to dispel the “myths and misconceptions” about the agriculture industry. The interested group formed what’s now known as the Brant County Agricultural Awareness Committee and held a day-long dairy event for Grade 5 students in 1989.
According to a 25th anniversary booklet, the committee soon realized they needed to expand into other commodities.
Their next step was to have local volunteer farmers visit Grade 5 classrooms. This continued until 1996, when the decision was made to create the Bite of Brant in its current form.
Committee chair, former teacher and local dairy farmer Jean Emmott has helped organize the event since its inception.
When asked why she is so passionate about student education, she told Farmtario that the students “are our future decision makers” that are consumers and will affect future policy.
Emmott was excited to welcome Lisa Thompson, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, who was visiting Bite of Brant for the first time on April 13.
Thompson said although she has been fortunate to attend many similar events in her riding of Huron-Bruce, it’s important to her to “show her support for any agricultural community that takes the time and efforts to pull volunteers together to make sure important initiatives like this continue.”
“Children these days need to appreciate that we have a good stable supply (of food) here in Ontario, and that our farmers are the very best.”
Thompson also noted that when she was first elected, she was the Vice-Chair of Ontario Agri-food Education (OAFE), now known as AgScape.
“So this is something that’s truly near and dear to me as well,” she said.
After touring the stations, each student was given a slice of pizza, an apple, and a carton of milk, something the organizing committee believes helps students connect with how their food is produced.
For the development of Bite of Brant, the Brant County Agricultural Awareness Committee was received the Farm and Food Care Ontario Champion Award in 2019.
