Cultivating Thought : Education: Farmers teach schoolchildren the basics of agriculture. New program seeks to expose students to the real thing.

Maybe all that oinking and quacking finally got to him: Old MacDonald is showing his age.

But with a field trip here and a slide show there, a handful of Ventura County farmers are trying to resurrect the old hayseed.

Or better yet, reinvent him.

Setting out to change the image of farmers as bumbling, overalls-clad hicks who poison the ground with pesticides and siphon water away from cities, a few ranchers have started teaching elementary-school children the basics of agriculture.

Unlike 4-H Clubs and Future Farmers of America, which emphasize hands-on experiences for kids interested in agriculture-related careers, the “Adopt a Farmer” program aims to explain the industry to students who have never been exposed to real-life farming.

Even in Ventura County, where agriculture yields $720 million worth of produce a year, many children don’t associate the dusty furrows they pass on the way to school with the strawberries they buy in the supermarket.

Sometimes, they don’t even understand what their own parents do at work in a packing house, avocado grove or flower stand.

That’s where the “Adopt a Farmer” program comes in.

“It gives kids a chance to put real faces to farming rather than sticking to the stereotypical image of Old MacDonald’s farm,” said Rex Laird, president of the county’s Farm Bureau. “That’s usually their sole perception of farming, and it’s no more accurate than Hollywood’s portrayal of the cowboy.”

By teaching 10-year-olds about the tricky business of cultivating the land, farmers hope to plant seeds of understanding in future voters. With an eye to their own welfare, they’re trying to give agriculture a better name.

“The kids need to know where their food comes from because soon they will be deciding land use issues and the future of the whole Ventura County economy,” said Roz McGrath, who plans to take a fifth-grade Somis class on a tour of her family’s Camarillo vegetable farm this spring.

The first step: shattering the stereotypes.

When rancher Tom Pecht first came to visit Roberta Simcoe’s third-grade class in Oxnard, he dressed in a suit and carried a briefcase. Immediately, the kids had him pegged--as a doctor.

“They expect us to be in overalls, right out of central casting,” Laird said. “But many farmers start their days with the Wall Street Journal.”

A few months after startling the third-graders into realizing that modern farmers are businessmen as well as barn muckers, Pecht returned to the classroom in more comfortable (albeit more stereotypical) garb--jeans, a checked shirt and a green baseball cap.

With hands-on demonstrations that elicited delighted giggles, Pecht spent several hours describing his 130-acre ranch and showing off equipment from a lemon picker’s canvas gloves to the slobber chains of a horse’s bridle.

After an interlude for some fresh-from-the-field guacamole, Pecht answered questions such as “Why does it take fruit so long to grow?” (Answer: That’s just the way it is) and “Why do you put plastic over the fields?” (Answer: So pesticides don’t escape into the air.)

He taught the students about irrigation, explained why he lets some lemons rot on the ground, and showed them how pickers are able to handle 80-pound bags of avocados and avoid back injuries.

“It’s going to make my life easier if the kids have more understanding about farming, rather than criticizing or condemning without knowing the facts,” Pecht said. “They’re only going to remember a few things, but those that do stick will be embedded.”

Eager to share their new knowledge, the third-graders babbled about soil samples, water use and the surprising concept that farmers own garments other than dirty dungarees. Some even said that Pecht sparked their interest in pursuing careers in agriculture.

“Farmers have to do a little bit of everything,” student Joseph Saipale said approvingly. “They have to walk around and check the trees and cut fruit off. It’s good exercise, too.”

Initiated several years ago by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom, the “Adopt-A-Farmer” program has so far arranged more than 50 matches between ranchers and teachers across the state.

Ventura County farmers who have gotten involved said they hope to persuade many of their colleagues to join the program as well. But first, they need to persuade teachers to include agricultural lessons in the curriculum.

“Reading, writing and arithmetic are certainly more important,” said grower John Grether, who volunteered in a Somis class this year. “But if we lose all sense of how our agricultural system works, that could have unsettling consequences.”