Happy American Agricultural Day! Not only do I love food (agriculture), I also love what I do (agriculture) and want to share that with the people around me. However, the interest in agriculture for most people tends to stop at their love of food. Why is that? Seasonal, plant-based agricultural job boards are full of postings suitable for any student wanting a summer job. But interest for these and other agricultural jobs is lacking and has been for a while.
I grew up on a farm, as did many of the people that I went to high school with. The majority of those I went to school with didn’t stay in the agricultural field, less than 10%. I honestly don’t think much about it until the agricultural job listings show up each year. While I loved opportunities like that, I know few students that want the opportunity to be part of our food systems in that way.
Now I see my own children and the agricultural programs that are available to them. Yes, there is the occasional school garden program and opportunities for plant based 4H or FFA but typically they don’t have the same wow factor that excites my kids like the animal sector of those programs. And my kids are the kids that help care for a big garden, have plant topics mentioned over the dinner table because they have parents who both work in agriculture, and enjoy the beauty of what plants around them can create (again, because of said parents).
How do we generate interest and foster a long-standing love of plants which evolves into potential career paths with the understanding that you don’t have to be the person actually growing the plants (marketing, communications, human resources, are all possible in the agricultural realm)? Are Agriculture in the Classroom and other programs enough to drive interest from a young age or do we need to make plants cool and popular in the times we live in now? Is agriculture just one big, overwhelming sector that’s hard to wrap your head around and grasp how you could fit in compared to other job sectors?
