Marshall County High School's Fall Culinary Class partnered with Nikki Rhein, Agriculture Agent at the Marshall County Extension Office to "take her classroom to the farm." Students were learning about sustainability and agriculture's role in food production. Therefore, their teacher, Mrs. Cathey, reached out to Nikki in order to find a good farmer with a sustainable operation. Since large livestock farms are presented in such a negative fashion on modern media, Nikki wanted to take them to a real and successful large scale agriculture business. Doug Hall, Owner and operator of WP Ranch was excited to showcase his operation to the youth, especially those who had never been on an operational farm before. Student gathered for a picture in front of a chicken barn at WP Ranch.WP Ranch has three large 30,000 bird chicken houses and a bermudagrass hay production business. Doug, who has a large presence in the KY farm bureau, is a big advocate for agriculture and presented a very informative and realistic outlook on modern sustainable practices. Doug described to the students how one year of production from his chicken barns could supply Bowling Green Kentucky with chicken meat for a whole year. As Doug went on, it was easy to see that the students began to understand why large production agriculture is necessary in order to feed our growing world. Nikki also briefed the students on how sustainability can mean many things. She described how Doug takes the manure from the chicken barns and uses it to fertilize his hay fields. Later the hay is harvested and use to feed more livestock and therefore, make even more human food. This full circle system could also be considered sustainable.Student peak into the chicken barn and see firsthand how happy and healthy the bird are!With the increasingly negative outlook that main stream media takes on production agriculture, these kinds of experiences are the key to helping your people understand how complicated feeding the world really is. Non agriculture students need to see firsthand how safe, wholesome and productive large scale farming operations can be. The day was such a success that Amy would like to schedule with Nikki and Doug to take future classes to the ranch!