FFA students coach shoppers on good choices

SHARON — Even in an area such as this one, where farming and gardening are still an important part of most people’s lives, it can’t hurt to remind shoppers where their foods comes from and how it is produced. And so, as they do every year, students from the FFA program in the agricultural education program at Housatonic Valley Regional High School spent the afternoon at a local market (this time, the Sharon Farm Market) for the annual Food Checkout Day. This year’s event was held Wednesday afternoon, March 30, and was sponsored by the Litchfield County Farm Bureau. Seven students in the Housatonic Valley FFA program chatted with shoppers and offered them prizes in exchange for taking trivia quiz questions about food production and farming in the United States. The purpose of Food Checkout Day is to spread awareness about the relationship of agriculture and farming to food. It represents the day when the average American has earned enough money since January to cover their annual food costs. One point of the outing is to demonstrate to shoppers how relatively affordable fresh food can be — most shoppers earn enough in just the first few months of the year to pay for a year’s worth of groceries.In past years, FFA students have reviewed the contents of consumers’ carts on Food Checkout Day, pointing out that a large portion of their grocery bills went to goods that were not food, such as paper towels and toiletries. Some shoppers were uncomfortable with that, however, so now the students use quizzes and trivia games to teach consumers about agriculture and farming. Customers who participated in the trivia games were awarded prizes such as pads of paper and $10 gift certificates to the Sharon Farm Market. The farm bureau donated $100 toward the certificates; $25 was donated by the Sharon Farm Market. The students who participate in Food Checkout Day are all first-year FFA students. They are sent not only to educate consumers, but also to learn to communicate and have a chance to interact with the public. The Housatonic Valley FFA has been participating in Food Checkout Day for about 10 years, said teacher Karen Davenport. The students have visited many of the grocery stores in the area. The students posted a chart detailing how many days of work it has taken for Americans to pay for their annual food costs since 1930. In 1930, it took until April to make enough money to cover a year’s worth of groceries. Now it takes until early February.