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Through a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Specialty Crop grant, Arizona Farm Bureau recently completed production on a series of educational videos highlighting Arizona’s current top 10 specialty crops, those crops that are fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops.

“The more we can educate and tell the public about Arizona agriculture’s story the better,” said Arizona Farm Bureau President Kevin Rogers. “These videos are designed to educate our young people about the wide variety of crops our state grows.”

Representing more than $1.7 billion in Arizona agriculture specialty crops, the Arizona Farm Bureau videos will feature broccoli, spinach, head lettuce, romaine lettuce, leaf lettuce, watermelon, pecans, cauliflower, cantaloupe and cabbage. These 10 crops were selected as they are currently the top 10 in cash receipts though these top 10 vary, for example the previous year lemons were in the ranking.

The first video completed and on YouTube is “The Adventures of Veggie Man: Field to Fork with Broccoli.” The additional videos will be released in subsequent months.

“Many of our Arizona families don’t know the variety and extent of Arizona’s healthy fruits and vegetables and what’s available to them in grocery stores and farmers’ markets,” says Julie Murphree, marketing director and program coordinator for this video series. “In collaboration with Arizona fruit and vegetable farmers, we felt the best way to tell Arizona agriculture’s vegetable and fruit story was to educate and inform through a video featuring our state’s top specialty crops. We want to help kids and Arizona families eat more fruits and vegetables.”

Arizona Farm Bureau plans to distribute the videos through Arizona Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom program, YouTube, Fill Your Plate and through its social media channels. Plus, some of our schools have asked to air the videos during mealtime in the cafeterias.

About Arizona Farm Bureau

The Arizona Farm Bureau is non-profit, grassroots organization dedicated to preserving and improving the Arizona agriculture industry through member involvement in education, political activities, programs and services. Arizona Farm Bureau provides an online directory of direct-market or “retail” farmers on its fillyourplate.org website.

USDA Specialty Crop Grant Project

The Arizona Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Consultation and Training Program, has funded all or a portion of this project using Specialty Crop Block Grant funds provided by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service.