Nevada's agricultural roots on display at Farm Days

"Things grow here," affirms Sonya Johnson, a Fallon farmer and volunteer at the seventh annual Capital City Farm Days for Students at Fuji Park on Thursday. And she's not just talking about the bumper crop of new subdivisions.

About 1,500 elementary school students and preschoolers from Carson City, Storey, Douglas and Lyon counties got a little hands-on education in exactly what grows in Nevada, how it grows and what they can do to help preserve the process long into the future.

Take Nevada potatoes.

"You probably already have," Johnson tells a group of students. "They're every bit as good as Idaho potatoes - and if you've ever eaten a can of Pringles, you've eaten a Nevada potato."

Jim Barcellos of the Carson City 4-H Club says that with the influx of kids moving to the area from big cities in California, a lot of the children who pass through the exhibition have never seen animals such as cows or goats in person before Farm Days.

"Most of them are so responsive," he says. "It's a real education for them."

A common question?

"Which one of the udders does the chocolate milk come from?" laughs Johnson.

With Earth Day today, the children also get lessons in conservation.

LeAnn Warne of the Carson City Environmental Control Authority stands in front of a fish bowl of blue water representing all of the water on earth. She takes an eyedropper and squeezes one drop of the water into her palm.

"This represents all the drinking water available in the entire world," she says.

Warne says our local water runs in three-year cycles, meaning just because we have a dense snowpack this year, doesn't mean we'll have extra water.

"What we'll get this year is the water from about three years ago," she says. "Which was a below average year."

"Every drop counts," she tells the children.

But water's not the only in-demand commodity to be found underground, for as they say, "If you can't grow it, mine it."

George Bishop, field specialist for the state Abandoned Mine Lands Program, displays samples of metallic ore found in the Silver State and some of the products the minerals are used for.

"Most of the gold in Nevada is microscopic," he says, holding up a core sample with minuscule flecks of the precious metal hardened inside.

Still, Nevada is the number three gold-producing region in the world and according to Bishop, most of it is still in the ground.

New to Farm Days this year is a booth devoted to the Waterfall fire and the devastating effects it had on local flora and fauna.

Lesley Bensinger of the University of Nevada, Reno Cooperative Extension, host of Farm Days says that the message of responsible hiking and camping is getting across.

"We do a lot of work in schools," she says. "When you ask the kids what caused the Waterfall fire nine out of 10 will raise their hands and say 'teenagers partying.'"

Capital City Farm Days runs again today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Fuji Park fairgrounds.

n Contact reporter Peter Thompson at pthompson@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1215.