Farmers and ranchers often talk about the importance of cooperation. Leaders of North Dakota State University student ag groups are putting the talk into practice.
The NDSU Ag Week Coalition, which represents a dozen ag groups on campus, are organizing NDSU Ag Week, April 13 to 18. National Ag Week was March 16 to 20, when NDSU's spring break, so the coalition scheduled its events for April.
"We really want to make NDSU Ag Week for all NDSU students, not just ones involved in agriculture," says Heather Milbrath, an NDSU student and communications coordinator for the week-long event.
NDSU is a land-grant college and agriculture remains vital to it, but many of its students know little about ag, she says.
NDSU Ag Week also seeks to celebrate ag's tradition at the university, as well as faculty, students and alumni involved in ag. An April 17 banquet will honor outstanding NDSU students and faculty with ag ties.
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Project
The project was started in late 2014 by NDSU student Nevada Turbiville, who wanted NDSU ag groups to launch a campus Ag Week event. Individual ag clubs hold a number of programs and events during the school year, but Turbiville wanted a collaborative effort among the clubs.
So he contacted juniors and seniors who have held leadership positions in ag groups at the school, Milbrath says.
About 10 club presidents eventually gathered just before finals week late last year. Since then, a dozen students have gathered twice a week to plan.
Scheduled events include: a Grill Out and Ag Olympics on the lawn of Sheppard Arena, booths with ag facts and prices in the Memorial Union, a showing of the movie Farmland in the NDSU Century Theater and a roughly five-mile Beef It Up fun run/walk through campus.
Organizers hope NDSU Ag Week will become an annual event. Some other land-grant schools already hold annual ag weeks, Milbrath says.
For more information, visit NDSU Ag Week on Facebook or NDSU_
AgWeek on Twitter.
