Hundreds of volunteers came together last weekend to tell thousands of kids and adults agriculture’s story at Calgary Stampede’s Aggie Days.

Deb Brewin with the Potato Growers of Alberta says this event is a great way to have face to face conversations with people and explain where their food comes from.

“We’ve had close to about 15,000 people that have gone through so far, which includes students and adults and we’re just really happy to be here educate the consumer, basically tell everyone where their food comes from,” said Brewin.

Brewin says the kids have had a lot of great questions.

“If it (the potato) is a fruit or vegetable.  They’re asking where the potato comes from, they’re also asking is it good for you?  We also get a lot of questions if it fattening.  That might be coming from another source for them, but we want to make sure everyone knows that they have zero fat content and it depends what you are putting on your potato.”

Rolf Schwabe from the Bow River Irrigation District says the kids are curious about irrigation.

“Some were just asking what is irrigation, how prevalent is it in the province what is the costs of being an irrigation farmer, how much water we use, general questions like that,” says Schwabe.

He says this is a great way to bridge the gap between rural and urban audiences.

“It’s very important, people seem to have lost touch where their food comes from.  It is very good to talk to children and adults, just let them know where some of the food comes from, what’s involved in producing it.

Schwabe says it is important let everyone know the effort that the farmers and irrigators putting into it.

“We’re trying to make sure they are very much appreciated.”