A petition which calls on the government to introduce agriculture as a compulsory subject up to year 9 and an option for GCSE has been launched.
The petition was launched this week, and needs 10,000 votes for a government response and 100,000 to trigger a debate in parliament.
It says: “Agriculture on a whole is an extremely important industry, it is used by everyone across the country, across the globe and it’s not just for food.“
Hopefully, teaching children and young adults correct and factual information will help support UK and worldwide farmers and the industry in the future.”
The petition highlights how the UK is seeing a rise in ‘false and skewed information’ used to attack food and farming.Numerous organisations, industry figureheads and even celebrities have called for the re-introduction of an agriculture or related subject.
Adam Henson, one of Britain’s best-known farmers, has called for it to be brought back, saying: “You can get a GCSE in religious studies and business, so why not in agriculture?”
Henson said he hoped to “do for farms what Rick Stein has done for fish”, and make agriculture a permanent subject on the school curriculum. The British public overwhelmingly back such a proposal, with most people believing that young people need to learn more about the origins of their food.
