It's just another day on the farm

Busloads of kindergarten through third graders arrived at Horseman Park last week to get a glimpse of life on the farm and to learn where their food and fiber comes from.

"This particular generation is so far removed from agriculture that they don't understand the part that agriculture plays in everyday life," said Ed Foster, spokesman for the Nevada Farm Bureau Federation.

That and the fact that Las Vegas is just not an agricultural town were main reasons for loading up farm animals from ranches in Northern Nevada and driving them down to Las Vegas, Foster said. Dairy cows, horses, poultry and pigs were some of the animals exhibited.

The Las Vegas Farm Festival, funded by the Nevada Heritage Foundation and Clark County Parks & Recreation, stemmed from an elementary teacher's workshop last spring that focused on agriculture in education. The three-day event was geared toward inner-city students.

"Our kids had no knowledge of what a farm really was ... they didn't even know what straw felt like," said Vicki Silvernail-Smith, a kindergarten teacher at Cynthia Cunningham Elementary School. "Their parents don't always have the opportunity to take them to the farm so we thought we'd bring the farm to them."

Cunningham el-e-men-tary, 4145 Jimmy Durante Blvd., hosted the festival.

Agriculture is the third largest industry in Nevada, Foster said, adding that the No. 1 crop in Nevada is alfalfa hay.

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