As traditional farm field trips for school-aged children have become less common, Shift•ology Communication has helped agriculture organizations connect with over 1.5 million students, consumers and other niche audiences to farms through free, live Virtual Farm Trips® (VFTs).
“Show me a farmer that will allow us to have 14,000 students on his farm—it’s not going to happen, but we can do that with a virtual trip,” said Krista McCoon, AgVenture coordinator for San Joaquin County, California. “This is the closest way of getting the kids to the farm without taking them there. And that’s the bottom line.”
Launched in 2015 with a single Ohio pig farm VFT, the program has blossomed into a platform, helping dozens of organizations nationwide connect tens of thousands of students at a time directly with farmers and agriculture experts for live video tours from their barns, fields, equipment and other real-world work environments. Over 250,000 students were registered for a VFT during the 2023-2024 school year alone…