RANT: Bl**dy sellers!!

StumpyPumpy

soolin wrote: »

I do actually worry about the general state of education nowadays.

To be fair to the youth of today, it isn't a new phenomenon. 30 years ago (that makes me feel very old ) I was a volunteer on a city farm project and most of the kids that were regular visitors had no idea where their food came from and couldn't relate the animals we reared with the food on their plate. Most didn't even seem to know where eggs came from until we got them to collect them!

One year we bought a steer to raise and slaughter for Christmas (We were a working farm that needed to turn a profit to survive) He was called "Bovril" but even then neither the kids nor their parents seemed to get the link. It all hit the fan when we sent out a newsletter including information on how to buy the beef for Christmas. In no time we were getting calls from the local press for statements, a "Save our Bovril" petition was started and there was even an attempt to replace the committee at an EGM to stop the slaughter and sale.

It was very hard to explain to people that Bovril was not a pet and if we hadn't bought him he would have still been headed to the abattoir but most likely without the 6 months or so of pampering he got with us. What's more, if we hadn't been allowed to do it, the farm would have gone bust, the finances really were that tight at the time.

In the end we got our way and learnt that many couldn't handle the brutal truth about food production, some parents stopped their kids coming to the farm again, so we modified how we acted. The next year we farrowed a pig and didn't tell the kids about why the number of piglets kept decreasing, though hardly any of them noticed until they were down to 5 or 6. It felt like we were cheating. Soon after I left the area so stopped volunteering, but I'm happy to say that the farm is still going and has grown quite a bit since I was there.

No doubt the children who were stopped by their parents from going to the farm have children of their own now and they are probably making them even more ill-informed than they were.

SP