When you were young, perhaps you played with toys that involved farm animals, a tractor, or learning to identify colors using fruits and vegetables like I did. You were probably given these with hopes that you would not only enjoy them, but also become familiar with these bizarre objects, perhaps even driving your parents crazy with the endless spinning of the wheel that makes animal noises when the lever is pulled, as my cousin is famously known for in family anecdotes. Or, perhaps you were an eccentric child and preferred either the real thing when it comes to animals or something a little more complicated than a little toy like I was. Either way, you and I when we were young, probably thought these toys were just for fun.
Well, the jokes on us, because these agricultural themed toys served such a larger purpose than just giving us a few hours of fun. These miniature tractors, toy barns, plastic farm animals, and spinning wheels introduced us to the agriculture industry, and began helping us to develop something known as agricultural literacy at a very young age. Wait…literacy? Isn’t that something that involves reading?
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In this case, that certain subject is agriculture, specifically relating to the food we eat and the fibers we wear, because sadly, regardless if children are given toys like the ones I described above to begin introducing agricultural literacy, many still do not know where food or fibers come from. For example, many young people are not aware that honey comes from bees, eggs come from chickens, and wool comes from sheep. Often times, agriculture related toys teach children what cattle and pigs are and what carrots and peas look like, but the connection from farm to plate is just not