By Khalida Sarwari
Emily Prough leaned back against a fence and watched her bunnies, Flip and Flop, scurry about on the grass. School had just let out and Emily would spend the rest of the unusually warm spring day supervising the rabbits, a duck named Einstein and two chickens, named Chicken McNugget and Chicken Marinara.
Emily, 15, is a member of Westmont High School’s agricultural science program, a series of classes that focuses on farming and agriculture. Every day after school, the Westmont freshman walks across the street from the school campus to the farm and tends to the five animals she is responsible for. That ranges from feeding and washing the animals, to letting them out for exercise, and tasks such as collecting the chickens’ eggs when they hatch. Emily usually sells the eggs to neighbors and friends.
“I’ve always liked animals and this gives you the opportunity to raise animals you can’t keep at home,” said Emily. “It’s so much fun.”
Any student that takes a class in the agricultural science program fulfills a science requirement and is automatically a member of the Campbell chapter of the Future Farmers of America, a national youth organization based in middle and high school classes that promote and support agricultural education, according to Shirden Flanders, president of the FFA Boosters Club, a parent group associated with the Campbell FFA.
“[Westmont] is the only school that offers an agricultural science program in Silicon Valley,” said Flanders.
Currently there are 170 students enrolled in the Campbell FFA. As part of the program, the students maintain the school farm and raise animals, which they take every summer to the Santa Clara County Fair for competitions. After that, the animals are auctioned off to buyers at the fair. The animals are usually steers, goats, lambs, pigs, chickens and ducks, and typically come from breeders in California and sometimes out-of-state.
Maddy Rogers, 15, is planning to show her chickens at the fair this year. Her goal is to be the first Campbell FFA member to place first.
She was 5 when she first heard about the agricultural science program, and now in her first year as a freshman, Maddy spends her after-school hours and even weekends at the farm, tending to her rabbit Colin, named after her boyfriend, and three chickens, the Three Grapes, named as such for their love of green grapes.
“My whole life I’ve been attached to animals, so I had to do it,” Maddy said. She described the class as a “free petting zoo.”
The best part of the program are the lessons about plants and animals, Maddy said. She has learned about the needs of plants, how to breed animals and raise livestock. Both she and Emily said they would continue with the program.
“It’s a great alternative to science class,” said Emily.
Every Saturday this month, students have been selling 4-inch plant pots for $2 each at the farm to raise money for the program.
“The plant sale is a way of getting additional funding to help kids pay for animal feeds and bedding supplies,” Flanders said.
The plants inside the pots are for heirloom tomatoes, peppers, squash, herbs and eggplants that were planted by the students and their parents and raised in a greenhouse on the farm, said Flanders.
The last plant sale will be held April 28 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Westmont Farm, across the Westmont High School baseball field.
Westmont students raise livestock in school’s agricultural science program
