Agriculture symposium for adults, children

An educational symposium that will cover all aspects of animal agriculture will be held March 31 at Rutgers University.

The event will cover a wide variety of agricultural topics and is geared to both youth and adults.

The program will be held at the university’s School of Environmental and Biological Sciences in New Brunswick and will feature information sessions on small ruminants, cattle, horses and poultry. Hands-on sessions will include building a foldable milking stand that doubles as a wheelbarrow for tack; dairy clip-off, processing and marketing poultry, turkeys and game birds; farm-safety scavenger hunt; and a small ruminant skills lab.

The cost for the daylong event is $12 and will include lunch. A separate morning session on rabbits will be held at a lower cost of $5. The deadline to register is March 15.

The New Jersey Junior Breeders Livestock Symposium is sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA), New Jersey Junior Breeder Program, Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the Department of 4-H Youth Development. It also is sponsored in part by Farm Credit/NortheastAgEnhancement and Hart Agency.

The New Jersey Junior Breeders’Fund, a low-interest loan program, offers agricultural education/FFA students and 4-H members the opportunity to advance the breeding of purebred livestock and the production quality of livestock. Loan applicants must be New Jersey residents, have adequate facilities for livestock and be either 4-H members or FFA/agricultural education students.

For more information, call 609-984- 4389 or email [email protected] or [email protected].