CANTON -- On Wednesday, Sept. 15, the St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau donated the first of a series of agricultural children’s books to the Canton Free Library.

The books donated were former Agricultural Literacy Week books. Agricultural Literacy Week is a program through New York State Agriculture in the Classroom at Cornell University. Each year volunteers across New York State to read agriculturally themed books to second grade classrooms.

In addition, educators are provided lesson plans to accompany the books. For the past 17 years, a book was selected by the program based on accurate, but age-appropriate, information on a wide variety of agriculture. Books range in topics from beekeeping, to chickens, to maple syrup. In 2020 alone, 2,300 books were donated to schools reaching 75,000 elementary students. St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau has historically been supportive of the program in the county, annually donating books to the local school system.

Earlier this year, St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau board members Dan Huntley and Brent Phillips formed an idea to donate these books to the local library system. St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau partnered with local businesses, Farm Credit East, Phillips Ag, Kelley Farm, and the Kevin Daniels Insurance Agency which each donated $300 to purchase books for the library system.

“Since the production agriculture numbers with New York state are shrinking and the interest from consumers to know where there food comes from, our St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau board would like to support this interest with more exposure to these well-written Ag Literacy books,” stated Huntley. “Each set of 17 books covers a diversified range of agriculture topics to inform readers about agriculture.”

In addition, New York Farm Bureau, made a matching contribution to St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau’s $300. Total funds raised to purchase books was $1,800. Book sets are currently being distributed across the county library system.

North Country Library System serves the 65 libraries of St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Oswego, and Lewis counties. Six of our libraries will receive the sets of agriculture literacy books, and our delivery network allows patrons of any library to request a title and have it delivered right to their hometown library. This service is available to anyone with an NCLS library card.