How Ag Aware Are You?

The public perception of agriculture seems to hold a negative connotation.  Often, it is viewed as cows and plows and not for its true meaning.  Each aspect of our lives, from the food we eat, to the clothes on our body, and even the fuel in our vehicles relates back to agriculture.  Those of us that are directly related and passionate about agriculture need others to see it as we do.  We see a rapidly growing population without the technology to produce enough food to go around and extremely high gas prices that we could possibly bring down with the help of biofuels.  Most importantly, we need to educate the public on all aspects of agriculture and how it truly impacts and plays a role in our lifestyles. 

On April 18^th the UK College of Agriculture Ambassadors and Ag Student Council held a campus wide activity-- Ag Awareness Day.  Students were able to stroll through main campus and enjoy free food, visit booths educating them about the many sides of agriculture.  These ranged from the Kentucky Soybean Association to facts about our land grant college, to how clothing is made and developed and budget planning is important to a family, to being able to buy plants grown in our greenhouses on campus.  Over four hundred UK students stopped to check out the buzz about ag and all that our college has to offer.  Through explaining our eighteen diverse majors, many new seeds were planted in young and adventurous minds that were previously unaware.  This was a great way to start off a new tradition for the College of Agriculture and a way to become more connected with main campus here at the University of Kentucky.  

In the future I look forward to being a part of and seeing events such as these blossom into crucial educational activities.  UK has such an opportunity to reach wide and diverse audiences through its Cooperative Extension Service, our top-ten agricultural research, and the production of quality alumni who work through the ranks of the college and University to succeed in their fields.  I can’t wait to witness the future of agriculture and all that the University of Kentucky does to continually improve and innovate agriculture, not only for the students at this university, but for the world.  

Our student newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel, did a feature story on the day.  You can read that here:  

  Sara Kate will be a senior in the fall at the University of Kentucky, majoring in Food Science.  She is from Hickman, Kentucky.  Sara Kate is a member of  Alpha Delta Pi sorority, Agriculture Student Council, the Institute for Food Technologies, and is a COA Agricultural Ambassador, where she will serve as senior coordinator of the program next year.