TEACHING FOOD FACTS TO OUR KIDS

Harvest festivals back in my day used to be at a school assembly where we gave thanks for the land’s bounty – usually a few tins of soup, broken biscuits and a mouldy loaf of Sunblest.

But according to a Jordans Cereals survey, a fifth of children aged six to 11 don’t actually know what a harvest is, and one in 10 don’t know where vegetables come from.

To help plant seeds in our children’s minds, Jordans Cereals and The Wildlife Trusts have joined forces with Eco-Schools to organise a Harvest Festival Live hosted by pop star and farmer JB Gill – who is one quarter of Noughties’ boy band JLS.

Being streamed on YouTube at 10am this morning, the digital Harvest Festival at jordanscereals.co.uk comes 177 years after the first earliest known Victorian thanksgiving service in Cornwall in 1843.

Former pin-up JB says: “As a farmer, I know how much work goes into growing and producing food, and the importance of farming in harmony with nature.”

The boy from Croydon, who sold 10 million records worldwide, now rears award-winning turkeys from his home in the Kent countryside. He says: “The annual harvest celebration is a brilliant opportunity to teach children where their food comes from, and the journey it makes from farm to fork.

“My own children have the privilege of growing up on our family farm surrounded by animals, and I hope this event will convey some of the wonder and joy of nature.”

The website is full of learning resources and recipes, and is a useful starting place if, like the 21% of the kids surveyed, your little ones want to be celebs when they grow up, rather than the 7% who want to be a farmer.

But as JB proves, it’s possible to be both…