A new initiative in Castle Douglas is bringing children from Castle Douglas Primary school closer to where their food comes from and learning more about how balanced nutrition helps them develop and grow.
The school is partnering with local farmers Tracey and Aylett Roan, from Roan’s Dairy, the Royal Highland Education Trust and the Stewartry Integrated Health and Social Care Health and Wellbeing Team to combine farm visits, weekly updates and classroom sessions to learn all about milk. Learning about where milk comes from is a great opportunity to link the school and farming community together.
The Adopt-a-Cow programme starts with a farm visit on 21st February. The children will be meeting cows who are in calf, will experience the robotic milking parlour and learn about the welfare of the herd.
Aylett Roan said: “Roan’s Dairy are really excited to be part of this new initiative. This is a great opportunity to not just help pupils connect to where their food comes from but for us to give something back to the community.”
Tracey Roan explained: “We are very much keen supporters of putting agricultural learning back into schools and this initiative is a great way to doing this – it’s combining both classroom learning and visits to the farm where the pupils will get to see in calf cows being scanned by the vet and robotic milking.”
RHET Project Coordinator Fiona Jamieson said: “The ‘Adopt a Cow’ initiative is a first for RHET. This project has so many positive educational and social benefits to it. I am grateful to the NHS Stewartry Team and the Roan Family for committing their time to this exciting new initiative.”
After the visit weekly updates will help them to follow the cows they meet and see what happens to them as they move on to have their calves. At the end of the programme in May they will meet the new calves on another visit to the farm and bring it all together in a special assembly, launching a health and wellbeing week, too.
