The "Real Dirt on Farming" tours, launched last year, are intended to get urban and rural elementary school students onto primary production farming operations to learn more about where their food comes from and about possible careers in agriculture.

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board agricultural education coordinator Jessica Poderdeski says children are so removed from the farm that it's important to show them where their food comes from.

Jessica Poderdeski-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

We had some interest last year already from schools in the Prince Albert area and so we chose to choose farms for this year's program in the Prince Alberta area making our way to Elstow, Saskatchewan where the Pork Interpretive Gallery is located.

We have three schools participating this year from Prince Albert and we will be visiting a bee farm called Moose Meadow Apiaries, a bison operation called Sagehill Buffalo which is near Cudworth and also the Pork Interpretive Gallery as our third location.

There are three schools,

We've got two classrooms from each school so there will be three individual tours and on each tour there will be a total of 50 students along with their teachers and parents and the age groups will range from grade five to grade eight.

The reason that there's a broader span of grade is just the classes that were interested.

Last year it was primarily grade seven and eight and this year we've widened it a little bit more.

Poderdeski says the reaction to the program has been very positive.

She says the students have learned a lot about the farming operations they have been toured and the teachers have been thrilled with the fact that they don't have to do a lot of preparation to take part in the tours.