RICHMOND—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.

The volunteer participants in Virginia’s seventh annual Agriculture Literacy Week March 6-10 visited 2,000 local classrooms and libraries. Many of them read Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter, a children’s book by Eugenie Doyle that was named the 2017 Virginia Agriculture in the Classroom Book of the Year. The book describes what happens on a farm during the winter, and how farmers work to provide safe, healthy food all year long.

“Agriculture Literacy Week provides an opportunity for volunteers to share the story of agriculture through reading to school groups and a chance for children to learn about life on the farm and meet real farmers,” explained Tammy Maxey, AITC senior education manager. 

Volunteers from 81 county Farm Bureaus, along with FFA chapter and 4-H club members and employees of Farm Credit, Southern States Cooperatives, soil and water conservation districts and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services read at their local schools. They also donated 1,850 copies of Sleep Tight Farm to classroom, school and local libraries.

Media: Contact Maxey at 804-290-1143.