AG LITERACY DAY FEATURES HOME-GROWN FLORIDA BOOK

Two staffers from the Florida Department of Agriculture’s Division of Marketing and Development created this year’s featured book.

By Barbara Wunder, FFVA communications manager

Once again this year, hundreds of volunteers across the state will read to schoolchildren on Agriculture Literacy Day. But this year’s event on April 10 adds a new twist to the tradition: The featured book was created especially for the day by two staffers from the Florida Department of Agriculture.

These Florida Farms was written by Gary Seamans and illustrated by Mike Wright. Seamans is a video editor in FDACS’ Division of Marketing and Development, and Wright is a graphic designer in the same division. The book chronicles the adventures of two young students as they follow a safari guide from the supermarket to farms and ranches, learning about the different commodities produced in Florida.

From left: Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and Alex Sink, chief financial officer for the state of Florida, join Ag in the Classroom Executive Director Lisa Gaskalla in proclaiming April 10 Florida Ag Literacy Day.

The book was created in honor of Ag Literacy’s fifth anniversary. Florida Ag in the Classroom, which educates children about the importance of the state’s ag industry, sponsored the first event in 2004 with help from Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and others in his department.

Because Florida’s school year started later in 2007, Florida Ag in the Classroom, Inc.’s Agriculture Literacy Day is taking place a month later than usual. There’s still plenty of time left to register as a volunteer reader.

Both Seamans and Wright are honored and even a little surprised to have been chosen to create the book.

Nelson Pugh, director of the Division of Marketing and Development, put out a call to his staffers asking if they had ideas for new books that would teach children about the importance of agriculture.

Seamans answered the call. “Although I’ve been working in television production for the last 15 years, I have an English degree in creative writing from Florida State University, and my wife has been trying to get me to write again. So I gave it a shot,” Seamans said.

His book idea was chosen for the project and the work began. Dr. Seuss was his inspiration, and his own children served as editors and sounding panel. “I have two boys, 11 and 9, and my wife reads to them every night,” Seamans said. “So I kind of had a built-in focus group, so to speak. I would write some things and then read it to the boys for feedback,” he said.

Seamans said his goal was to teach children that agriculture is a huge and diverse business. “It’s more than row crops and dairy,” he said. “It’s also tree farming and all the products you can get from trees, for example. And there are race horses and tropical fish as well. Agriculture doesn’t just mean food.”

Florida Ag in the Classroom, which sponsors Ag Literacy Day, educates teachers to present lessons about the importance of the state's agriculture industry. The teachers shown above are participating in last year's state workshop in Cocoa Beach.

The story begins in the supermarket. Two young students are talking about where everything on the supermarket shelves comes from. One says that it’s probably from a factory behind the back door. From there, the two are off on an adventure to find the answer.

Illustrating the story was a challenge, Wright said. Although written simply, paragraphs would include a multitude of ideas. Pages 14 and 15 are a perfect example.

“I realized I’d have to have a bull, all four characters on horseback, cattle, deer, a pasture and more,” he said. “In another illustration, I had to draw an assortment of fruit trees – avocados, jack fruit, guavas and mangoes, and I’d have to know exactly what each looked like. I had to do a fair amount of research so that the leaves, the trees themselves and all the details looked authentic,” he said.

Wright also made sure that the vantage point and perspective of the illustrations varied from page to page. “I tried to think about where the camera would be in each scene,” he said. “Sometimes the characters are small, sometimes they’re close, sometimes you’re looking down on the action, sometimes slightly up toward it. It’s a bit like movie pacing. And you have to think about how pages will look next to each other.”

Funding for Florida Ag in the Classroom and Florida Ag Literacy Day comes from purchases of the “ag tag” specialty license plate.

Registration for Florida Agriculture Literacy Day begins soon. Visit www.agtag.org for how to get involved. Books, lesson plans and packets, along with bookmarks and other items for students will be sent out in the next few weeks. It’s up to the reader to choose and contact the school to set up a time to read. Volunteers may read on another day if they aren’t available on April 10. Florida Ag in the Classroom only asks that all readings be completed by the end of the school year.

Funding for Florida Ag in the Classroom and Florida Ag Literacy Day comes from purchases of the “ag tag” specialty license plate. FFVA encourages all industry members and others who believe children should understand the importance of the state’s farms, ranches and other agricultural operations to buy ag tags. Information is available at www.agtag.org or visit your local tax collector’s office.