Today on “Fit to Eat” we leave the province to visit our cousins in Iceland. Can you grow farmers, at school? Or are they created and molded by everyday experience in the field and barn and greenhouse? Or, is it both of those things? The folks I talk to today would believe the latter. They are convinced that there is a need to provide college or university level training for aspiring farmers, even if they spent their earlier years on and around farms. I’m at the Agriculture University of Iceland. It’s a lovely campus, lots of good land and some fine barns, in Hvanneyri, 80 kilometres north of Reykjavik, in the municipality of Borgarbyggð (say that 5 times fast…).
Full disclosure here – I’ve been to this campus a few times before. In an earlier life, I even tried to get Memorial University to have an articulation agreement with the Agriculture University of Iceland. It never quite happened. I still think we have much to learn from each other. These interviews were completed before our own College of the North Atlantic started its Agriculture Technician program – where we spent the last two episodes of this show. But it raises the question of whether Iceland’s experience is a model for us.
I speak with three staff members there, Ólöf Ósk Guðmundsdóttir, Egill Gunnarsson, and Rósa Björk Jónsdóttir, about the value of post-secondary education for farmers, the changing role of farming in Icelandic culture (and why education helps to maintain the public’s trust in agriculture)and the continuing attractions of the farming lifestyle for those looking for quality of life. Oh, and I get berated for my naively-optimistic view of the value of the Icelandic dairy cow. But it’s all in good fun.
It’s a bright October day. We start in the Administrative Building – warm, full of wood – what you’d expect in a Nordic country. After some strong coffee, I sit down with one of the program directors. Join us.
Season 3 of Fit to Eat is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.
