Badger Common’Tater June 2022 Issue
FFTFF Breaks Ground on Food + Farm Exploration Center
Ag industry, business leaders, and key legislators attend innovative agricultural center groundbreaking
Farming for the Future Foundation board members, along with Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture Randy Romanski and Chris Roth, president and CEO of Reinke Manufacturing Company, broke ground on the Food + Farm Exploration Center, April 29, in Plover, Wisconsin. From left to right are Paul Palmby; Richard Okray; Tamas Houlihan; Les Dobbe; Andy Diercks; Jordan Lamb; Richard Pavelski; Michelle Peariso; Alicia Pavelski; Roth; Sec. Romanski; Candise Miller; and Gregg Hansel.
It was a cool day in more ways than one, April 29. The rains held off and there was an air of excitement when Farming for the Future Foundation (FFTFF) broke ground on the Food + Farm Exploration Center in Plover, Wisconsin.
With the FFTFF focus being to reconnect people to agriculture and the food they eat, the Food + Farm Exploration Center will be a state-of-the-art educational manifestation of the foundation’s mission.
The Farm + Food Exploration Center, slated to open in summer 2023, will be a place for people to gather on a journey into the world of modern agriculture, meet people behind the food they eat, build their science and engineering skills, and connect, play, and learn.
It will be a teaching farm, a children’s museum, science center and community workshop all rolled into a tantalizing celebration of food and farming.
The Farm + Food Exploration Center will also be a place to educate current and future generations about agricultural innovation and sustainability.
In short, it will be a place where everyone has a seat at the table.
The land upon which the Farm + Food Exploration Center is being constructed was generously donated to the project by the Worzella family, one of Central Wisconsin’s multi-generational farmers and longtime members of the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association.
The center will be located just west of Interstate 39, in Plover, east of Hoover Road and to the immediate south of Lake Pacawa Park.
Candise Miller, executive director of the foundation, said the center will operate as the common ground for the public to explore the innovative nature of agriculture and become inspired by it.
