This week I attended a Made in Manitoba Breakfast (MIMB) at Dufferin Elementary School in Winnipeg. The Made in Manitoba Breakfast program is run by Agriculture in the Classroom and aims to connect students to where their food comes from. The program has been such a success, they have been able to reach 40 Manitoba schools this year.
Prior to enjoying a delicious breakfast, students are taught just exactly where the foods they are about to indulge in comes from through a lively presentation on agriculture put on by MIMB coordinator Jessica Brady.
Learning about the journey their foods goes through from farm to plate makes their morning meal all that much more enjoyable. The menu consists of all Manitoba produced ingredients: eggs, pork sausages, pancakes topped with canola margarine and honey. On this day the breakfast included strawberries from a local strawberry picking farm, a lucky treat in the middle of the winter.
It was hard not to smile at the innocence of the children when they answered questions about agriculture Jessica asked them. Unlike children in rural communities, urban kids’ students’ first hand knowledge about agriculture can be more limited. But it was a reminder of why programs such as this one are so important; we have a responsibility to teach all Manitobans the importance of agriculture and where the foods we consume on a daily basis comes from.
Agriculture in the Classroom is doing a marvelous job through various programs to nourish more minds with new curriculum-linked resources.
To learn more about the Made in Manitoba Breakfast and other programs run by Agriculture in the Classroom, visit their website at http://www.aitc.mb.ca/.
Be Well…Wendy
(Thanks to Ag in the Classroom for the photos.)
