SAE's are somewhat new to Boonsboro High School students as the state of Maryland has just recently affiliated and some of the students are unfamiliar with what SAE is or what the AET online record keeping system is. Therfore, SAE visits have been a bit of a challenge for me.
However, I had the pleasure of visiting our Chapter President at her job working on a small farm. Which, I would consider a CSA.
The most important thing that I took away from this visit was the relationship between the employee and the employer. The employer was sure to provide our student with a walkie talkie that she carries around the farm each and every day. This walkie talkie serves as a form of communication due to the poor cell phone reception in this area.
While working on the farm, our student gets to tend to a variety of different plants and animals. On the farm, the family has 100 laying hens, a variety of grassfed beef which include herefords, angus, and charlay, as well as 11 hooney cooney pigs and a greenhouse.
Something that I found unique about this placement is that the family has multiple animals on the property which they use for market products. All of the beef are grassfed beef, and all of the animals can be marketed by individual cuts rather than purchasing 1/2 of a pig. This system has been put into place due to the customer clientelle which is primarily in the DC region.
I thought that it was interesting how connected the employers were to our student in terms of support and wanting the student to continue working for them post-graduation. I also thought that it was interesting when discussing with Mrs. Cashell-Martin, I determined that she does not grade the SAE projects due to how new the students are to the concept.
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