More than 1,200 Virginia Farm Bureau volunteers and members of the state’s agricultural community marked Agriculture Literacy Week by reading to 50,000 preschool and elementary school students.

Virginia agriculture will be celebrated during National Ag Week, March 19-25. National Ag Day is March 21.

Virginia’s Agriculture in the Classroom program will holds its seventh annual Agriculture Literacy Week March 6-10.

As spring inches closer on the calendar, gardeners are not the only ones thinking about digging in the dirt. Many teachers are planning their schools’ spring gardens.

Jessica Pittman, a first grade teacher in Caroline County, has been named Virginia Agriculture in the Classroom 2017 Teacher of the Year.

Every spring, as many as 1,000 volunteers visit Virginia classrooms and read books about agriculture to more than 50,000 children.

Virginia’s Agriculture in the Classroom program has named Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter, a children’s book by Eugenie Doyle, its 2017 Book of the Year.

This Thanksgiving season, the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture has created an activity to help young students understand how foods reach their holiday tables. 

Because agriculture is everywhere in Virginia, the Mecklenburg County Farm Bureau Women’s Committee recently presented a colorful map to the Virginia Welcome Center on Interstate 85 South at Bracey to familiarize visitors with the state’s different agricultural regions. 

Applications are being accepted through Nov. 1 for Virginia Agriculture in the Classroom’s Teacher of the Year recognition.