Last Thursday and Friday students from eight schools in our area were out at a food farm learning about food production and agriculture by planting their own crops.

Blair's Family of Companies was the host, as the seeding took place at their locations in Watrous and Lanigan.

Nokomis school principal Joe Filson is very pleased with the experience the kids are getting.

"It's such a great experience for these kids to see how farming works and how the basics of plants work. I think it's so neat to emphasize the importance of farming in a community."

About 200 students took the event in over the two days planting vegetables such as potatoes, peppers and tomatoes.

"More and more people are getting disconnected from the rural economy and from farming in particular because grandma and grandpa's farm doesn't exist anymore in some cases," explained Patty Smith; the Director of Business and Talent Development for Blair's. "We really wanted this opportunity to give kids the chance to understand how food is produced."

They had a number of learning stations set up as well, they were taught the importance of bees to nature, they learned of soil and nutrients as well as agriculture safety.

Overall the day out of the classroom was a beneficial one according to Filson.

"There's some really good stuff we just took in about soil and planting, it's just a great opportunity to learn about how plants grow."

The students will get to go back to the food farms in the fall to harvest what they grew.

You can hear more from both Filson and Smith below.