Monsanto Helping Rural Schools

Monsanto Helping Rural Schools. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Farmers and ranchers can help their local schools with math and science according to Linda Arnold, Customer Advocacy Lead with the Monsanto Fund. It’s called The America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education program.

ARNOLD: So the process starts with the farmer. The farmer needs to go online or call an 800 number to nominate the school district. Once the school district is nominated the Monsanto Fund will take it from there. We’ll contact that school and let them know they’ve been nominated to participate and then the schools can go online and fill out an application.

Now until April 15, 2013, farmers can nominate a local public school district to compete for a merit-based grant of up to $25,000.

ARNOLD: It is merit-based so a school needs to have a great idea. Of course there’s always need so that is another component of the evaluation and the last one is community support. So the more farmers that get behind a nomination the stronger the application is at least through the first round of judging.

And Arnold says that the judges are farmers themselves.

ARNOLD: We have an advisory council of farmers that are from all across the U.S. They have a background in education. A lot of them have been on school boards in these rural communities and they actually make the final selection of the 172 grants that we give away.

Get more details at growruraleducation.com.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.