Requirement #4: Visit

\(\boxed{\mathbb{REQ}\Large \rightsquigarrow}\) Visit a farm, botanical garden, grocery store, or any other location where farm produce can be found.

Tip

You can complete this requirement using a virtual visit!

1. During your visit, talk with someone in charge about how the plants are grown or animals are raised, and how the food is processed.

2. Discuss with your counselor the food science involved at the place you visited.

Fun farming facts

• The average dairy cow produces 46,000 glasses of milk per year! There are six main breeds of dairy cows with the most common being the traditional black and white Holsteins. No two cows are identical, but the average cow weighs 1,200 pounds (or 544 kilos).

• While cattle are ruminants and grazers, sheep are as well. By contrast, the differences between sheep and goats is that goats evolved to eat off the ground over time. Goats are browsers, meaning they tend to eat branches, leaves, shrubs, vines, and the like, primarily.

• Tractors were invented in the 1890s to pull plows through fields. By the 1920s, the all purpose modern tractor had been developed. With different attachments, tractors can be used for plowing, cultivating, mowing, planting, harvesting, and moving soil and heavy equipment. Before tractors, it wasn’t uncommon to use horses or oxen on the farm.

• Horses are the original man’s best friend and are estimated to have been domesticated since 6000 B.C. They have the largest eyes of any land mammal, and their teeth take up more room in their head than their brain. Although the average domesticated horse has a lifespan of 25 years, the oldest horse ever recorded was “Old Billy” at 62 years old.

• Whether food crops are cultivated mechanically with tractors, with horses, or by hand, another fun fact is there is over 1,600 varieties of bananas! There are hundreds of thousands of varieties of all different kinds of edible plants.

• Fun facts about chickens? The average chicken lays an egg a day. There are more chickens than any other bird species in the world, with 25 billion chickens around the globe.

These fun facts about farming were copied from agdaily.com. Check out the website for more facts!

Farmers could protect the environment and cut down on fertiliser use with swarms of drones. Image from robohub.org. Click on image for full credit.

Attention

Once you have completed this requirement, make sure you document it in your worksheet!