Do your kids know where the food on their plates comes from? The food they’re served three times a day: how was it produced, raised or grown before arriving at the store or market? If we value general, musical and literary culture, it’s possible – and important! – to develop the agri-food culture of young people, the future citizen-eaters. What’s fantastic is that one way of learning more about our food – where, how and by whom it’s produced – is totally enjoyable: agrotourism!
What is agrotourism?
There is no single model of agrotourism. The term is used to describe experiences that connect the public with agriculture. This can take the form of tours (self-guided or guided), farm trails, animal visits, pick-your-own fruit or vegetables, workshops, farm picnics, and so on: there are as many possibilities as there are farms opening their doors to visitors! Agrotourism is all about going to a place where food is produced, and enjoying an experience that will never be the same from farm to farm or season to season, but that always offers an opportunity to associate stories and/or gestures and/or landscapes and/or faces with food. The pleasure is present during the activity… and the memories nourish for a long time the meaning that young and old later associate with food.
Family Agrotourism: many benefits
In a context of discovery and culinary pleasure, agrotourism has much to offer young and old alike. In fact, it’s an activity that can be enjoyed by all generations, children and grandparents alike!
As well as being a family activity that everyone can enjoy, introducing children to the world of agriculture and food production can have a number of benefits, including the development of taste and culinary skills.
DEVELOPING CHILDREN’S TASTE BUDS
Three quarters of children aged 2 to 10 may experience episodes of food neophobia. This is a reluctance or rejection of certain foods, especially when they are less familiar. But don’t panic! It’s all part of normal development for most children! Our role as adults is to support them as best we can in the process of taste development.
To help children discover the diversity of food, the strategy is to focus on familiarization. Familiarization is a gradual process of getting to know foods through repeated exposure, so that they gradually become familiar and familiar. Children tend to like the foods they know. So getting to know foods is one way of gradually accepting and appreciating them. That’s important, when you consider that eating a variety of foods is the basis of a healthy diet!
The process of becoming familiar with a variety of foods – especially those produced close to home – through repeated exposure takes place first on the plate, where the child can gradually see, smell, touch and eventually taste the food. This doesn’t happen overnight when foods are new: it can take up to 15 to 20 exposures before a food is adopted into the child’s “palette”. What’s interesting is that there are other types of positive exposure to food: educational games, discussions about food, participation in meal preparation (see below), gardening in the backyard or on the balcony, and… agrotourism activities!
With agrotourism, exposure is an experience. It touches all the senses, in a context of pleasure. Children see how strawberries grow when they fill their own baskets as little men in the field. After visiting a cheese factory, he knows that the cheese in his favorite grilled cheese comes from the cow he found so beautiful when he visited it. And his Saturday morning breakfast doesn’t come from the grocery store, but from the chickens! He knows it, he’s seen it, he may even have collected eggs himself when he visited a farm that offered this experience. Even the zucchini he often pushes away from his plate, he may be more curious about after hearing a farmer tell him a story about this vegetable.
Examples could be as numerous as there are local foods and agrotourism experiences that bring the whole family closer to food at source, in a fun and playful context.
DEVELOPING CHILDREN’S CULINARY SKILLS
Once they’ve developed an interest in a food, children are more likely to want to get involved in the kitchen when the time comes to prepare that food. Involving children in the kitchen at home is an integral part of food familiarization and exposure strategies, as well as a golden opportunity to gradually pass on some culinary skills to future citizen-eaters!
Developing culinary skills is no small matter. It’s about giving children the tools they need to grow up eating the staple foods produced around us, which they’ll be able to cook themselves. Developing the culinary skills to put local foods on the menu easily and often is healthy on many levels: for us, the environment, the local economy, the vitality of the region, and so on. You can improve your culinary skills at any stage of life, but you’ll start out with good tools if you’re introduced to the kitchen as a child!
Many children are much more interested in cooking with us strawberries, cheese, eggs, zucchini or any other food they’ve just had a positive experience with during an agrotourism activity. Stimulating curiosity about food and the desire to cook is certainly a positive spin-off from farm visits.
Enjoy the summer!
During the summer, there’s no shortage of agritourism experiences to add to your vacation menu! There’s something for everyone, in every region. That said, agritourism doesn’t stop with the return to school: there are also great adventures to be had with the family on autumn weekends, and even during the cold season. Whatever the time of year, there’s every reason to make agritourism a regular part of your family activities.
