For the second straight year, the students from the Iron River-based school district visited Ed McBroom’s family dairy farm.

With fewer and fewer family farms, children often have little insight about farm life, said Denise Maloney, wellness coordinator for the West Iron County district. She noted only five dairy farms remain in Dickinson County and only 70 are left in the entire Upper Peninsula.

“It is a chance to visit a real-life working dairy farm. We love opportunities like these to introduce our students to the ‘farm to table’ concept and to help children to understand where their food comes from,” she said.

McBroom, co-owner of the farm, said he typically gives two public school tours a year as well as six to 10 tours to home-schooled students or other education groups and clubs such as 4-H.

Ed McBroom leads a tour of West Iron County third-graders around his family’s dairy farm in Vulcan.

“While the generational removal from the farm is not as bad in the Upper Peninsula as in the rest of the country, I believe it remains critically important for everyone, particularly students, to learn the who, what, how and where of their food,” said McBroom, a former state representative for the area. “The internet, movies, and books are full of people making money by marketing schemes surrounding misinformation about farms, farmers, and modern practices — the tours are a way to establish relationships and tell the true story.”

Along with the dairy farming component, the farm visit is a great STEM opportunity as well for students to witness the robotics and technology on site, as the McBroom farm is one of only two in the U.P. with an automated milking system.

Installed two years ago, the two robotic units each can milk about 65 cows a day, averaging three visits per cow.

“We want to show students the story of modern farming: safe, abundant, ethically produced food. Perhaps it will inspire some students to a career in agriculture or the many supportive industries that make it possible — even robotics,” McBroom said.

While modern farms face many pressures to compete, 97 percent in the U.S. still are owned and operated by families. The average Michigan dairy farm still has fewer than 100 cows.

Ed McBroom shows where milk is stored.

“We are thankful to Aspirus Health Systems Foundation for providing funding for opportunities like this through a wellness grant to help children to develop healthy lifestyle goals,” Maloney said. “Together, we share a common goal of growing healthy children, healthy families and ultimately a healthy community. Opportunities such as these align with our district’s wellness goals of developing healthy lifestyle goals that our students will carry with them over a lifetime, long after they leave our hallways and classrooms.”

Theresa Proudfit can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 45, or tproudfit@ironmountaindailynews.com.

Ed McBroom shows the automated milking robots.