I Believe in the Future of Agriculture

How Does It Affect You?

Education and agriculture go hand in hand. The education of agriculture is extremely important and yet many people lack in this area. Sometimes, it blows my mind that people can lack the knowledge of their food, natural resources, land, clothing, and so much more we depend on agriculture for. But, a student in one of my classes opened my eyes and mind more to this topic the other day during lecture. The topic of this days class was “if 5 small farms were about to go under, would it be ethical to take money from the world’s richest man to save them?” The student in my class started his answer with, “well I’m from New York City so the farms don’t really affect me...” Now, this response was jaw dropping too many of us sitting around the room. His response really stuck in my brain though. I and many others in this class were raised on farms or in farming communities. We can look out our front doors and see dairy farms, beef cattle, pigs, and crops. The smell of freshly cut hay or manure newly spread on a field commonly floats through our car windows and products of these fill the shelves in our local grocery store as well as this students, no matter how many miles apart we may be.

I then thought about my four year old step daughter. She is too young to be in school and very few elementary schools offer formal education classes on agriculture anyway. Yet, even without “formal education” of the topic, she knows her milk comes from cows (of many colors) and generally how, she knows that the pigs in the pen she plays with are being raised to be “yummy in her tummy” and that all these animals take a lot of work, dedication and love. Much of this knowledge is due to the community she was raised in. If she was from the middle of a city where these practices don’t take place in an average setting we wouldn’t expect her to have such a broad familiarity of it so young would we? But, ask her what a subway or taxi is and she would be clueless because that’s not something she is used to. So for this student in my class “who isn’t affected by farms” and most likely has never had the privilege to work around or see farm animals or production processes, why would we expect any different response? This is directly where education comes in. I am not even preaching formal education. (Although I believe every student should have to take agriculture courses in high school.) Education of any kind, consumed through anyway would help today’s society be better knowledgeable and understanding of this industry and their food sources! 4-H and FFA are outstanding national youth programs where kids can gain information and experiences and they do not have to have any background in agriculture. Something as simple as attending the fair and walking through the barns and reading a poster or asking one simple question could leave a fact imprinted in the mind. My passion and hope is that every person can have knowledge of our food system and agriculture industry and I believe this should start at a young age. As a future agriculture educator, I hope I can reach as many kids and young adults in my future teaching placement as possible to instill a passion or curiosity of the agriculture industry within them. I hope for a diverse classroom of students where we can all share, connect and promote an industry that connects us all. I and other future agriculture teachers currently stepping into this hard task in upcoming years will cover many places, from rural country sides to inner city communities, to keep the future of the agriculture industry and knowledge of our food and natural resources flowing and passing down to the next generations. I still believe in the future of agriculture and its time that our society begins to as well.