Jim Wells County Fair Ag Day gives students hands-on agriculture lessons

At the Jim Wells County Fairgrounds in Alice, fourth graders leaned in at stations on livestock, crops, machinery and farming technology, turning a day outside the classroom into a close look at the industry that still anchors Jim Wells County’s economy.

About 500 students from Jim Wells and Duval County schools took part in the three-day Ag Day event on May 5, moving from one hands-on stop to the next as they traced how food, fiber and farm products move from the field to daily life. Students described the experience as eye-opening, with some saying that seeing livestock up close changed how they thought about meat and that learning how many common products come from plants and animals made the lesson feel more real than a textbook page ever could.

That lesson matters in a county where agriculture remains a major business, not just a tradition. USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture profile for Jim Wells County shows 55% of agriculture sales came from crops and 45% from livestock, poultry and products. The same profile lists 116,011 acres of cropland and 219,873 acres of pastureland, a reminder that agriculture stretches across far more of the county than the fairgrounds in Alice.

The economic stakes are sizable. A Texas A&M AgriLife economic impact analysis estimated that production agriculture generated $78,854,747 in total effects in Jim Wells County in 2024 and supported 1,310 jobs. For a county in the Rio Grande Plain that includes Alice, Orange Grove, Ben Bolt, Sandia and Premont, that makes agriculture a workforce issue as much as a cultural one.

Local extension and fair leaders are treating Ag Day that way. The Jim Wells County AgriLife Extension office lists Rogelio Mercado, Teresa Lopez and Angelica Torres among its county agents, and the fair association says the 2026 event is the 89th annual Jim Wells County Fair. The fair association is based at 3001 S. Johnson St. in Alice, where the county’s agricultural heritage is being tied directly to the next generation of students.

In a county where farms, ranches and related jobs still shape everyday life, Ag Day gives fourth graders a first look at the systems behind the food on their plates and the clothes they wear, while also introducing the careers that will keep those systems running in Jim Wells County.