Contra Costa Times, CA
10-07-07
Schools hope 'hip' look yields bounty of interest
As gap in agriculture workforce widens, many are looking to harvest industry
appeal among students
By Sara Lin
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Agriculture schools in California and across the nation are hoping fresh slogans
will cultivate interest among high school graduates who don't know wheat from
Wheaties.
The same universities that a generation ago churned out legions of agriculture
professionals largely struggle today to woo students. And many who are studying
agriculture are clamoring for cheese class and winemaking seminars, shunning
traditional fields such as soil science and crop production. Even the Midwestern
states have felt the pinch.
Many schools are wrestling with declining enrollment, as a large portion of the
agricultural workforce is nearing retirement.
In California, one-third of the public and private plant doctors who monitor the
health of the state's $32 billion agriculture industry will retire in 10 years or less.
One-third of the state's county agricultural commissioners, whose inspections
help keep out voracious foreign pests such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, will
retire in the next five years. Yet enrollment in horticulture programs at the state's
top agriculture schools has dropped as much as 40 percent in the past five years.
"Behind every farmer in the field, there's a whole line of merchants and scientists
that support that farmer," said Fred Roth, a professor of plant pathology at Cal
Poly Pomona. "But we're aging out, and there isn't a group of people coming up
to take our places."
The looming workforcegap has industry experts and agriculture school officials
hiring marketing companies to spruce up their image. It's a tall order: How do you
make farming hip?
An outdated image
University administrators peg the problem to agriculture's outdated "cows and
plows" public image. Urbanization of many of California's historic farming plains
has decimated the ranks of high school graduates exposed to horticulture or
husbandry.
Many colleges have changed their names to broaden the appeal, deemphasizing agriculture and tacking on terms such as "environmental sciences"
or "natural resources."
In June, Iowa State University officials broke with nearly 50 years of tradition
and added "life sciences" to their agriculture school's name -- a move intended to
attract more students after enrollment dipped from 2,807 students in 2001 to
2,448 students in 2005.
Even the flagship organization of youth in agriculture, the Future Farmers of
America, dropped the word "farmers" in 1988, preferring to be known as the
National FFA Organization.
Purdue University in Indiana spent $60,000 in 2003 on slick mailers and
recruiting visits to high schools to show prospective applicants the range of job
opportunities available to agriculture majors.
At Cal Poly Pomona, a 20 percent decline in plant sciences majors in the past
five years spurred administrators earlier this year to hire a marketing company to
give the agriculture school an image makeover.
A glossy mock-up advertisement poster dares students to "Get a Job as a
Superhero," fighting a fierce crop-destroying black bug, or "Delve Into DNA" to
breed world-class Arabian horses.
U.S. Department of Agriculture boosters also are reaching for catchy slogans. At
local fairs, volunteers hand out bright red book covers with cows wearing
sunglasses under the words "Agricultural Research is UDDERLY Awesome."
About 47 percent of the agency's workforce is older than 50, said Gilbert Smith,
deputy assistant secretary for departmental administration at the Agriculture
Department.
In California, an entry-level county agricultural inspector makes $32,000
annually. But with at least two years of extra study, he or she could become
certified as a senior inspector and earn $70,000, said Earl McPhail, president of
the California Agricultural Commissioners and Sealers Association.
When Patrick Dosier, 22, told friends back home in Placentia that he's majoring
in agronomy at Cal Poly Pomona, they assumed he wanted to be a gardener. But
Dosier plans to become a crop adviser and help growers find more efficient ways
to use their water and land.
"I think you get to enjoy plants more when you eat them," said Dosier, who helps
run the student farm at the university. "I do farmers markets, too, and it's fun to
pitch people on the food."
He likes working with his hands and being outdoors. After watching his father and
grandfather's circuit manufacturing company lose business to China, Dosier
chose an industry that wouldn't get outsourced -- he hopes -- any time soon.
Some say the industry needs to enlist Hollywood's help -- perhaps a crime show
with detectives hot on the trail of hoof-and-mouth disease or E. coli.
Others think the state's agriculture colleges need to cooperate on TV
commercials such as the California Milk Advisory Board's "Happy Cows"
campaign promoting California cheese.
At UC Riverside, professors try to draw in students by talking about how insects
have shaped human history as disease carriers. The teachers humanize plant
diseases by showing students that insects attack trees and vines in the same
way salmonella harms people.
Educators and agricultural experts estimate that the industry has five years to
turn the tide.
Generations of work
Still, the work seems to draw a certain kind of soul.
Bob Gaddie, a 62-year-old Bakersfield plant doctor, is the third generation and
last of his family to work in agriculture. His grandfather owned citrus groves in
Corona and his father was a ranch foreman.
Gaddie is a consultant, hired by farmers to be their first line of defense against
wily menaces such as spotted spider mites, which suck the moisture out of
leaves and strip a grape vine bare within weeks.
He monitors 7,000 acres of almonds, pistachios, grapes and citrus for a dozen
growers. He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. six days a week and is walking in the fields at
sunrise.
On a recent Wednesday morning, Gaddie stopped his blue Ford pickup outside a
grove of almond trees and ambled down a row, ducking low-hanging branches
heavy with nuts. He wore jeans, a starched blue shirt with long sleeves and a
pair of well-worn, dusty brown cowboy boots. He snapped a leaf off the tree and
searched it for bugs with a magnifying lens that hung by a string around his neck.
He repeats the same exercise 10 times in each field he visits, using an index
card to track the number and kinds of bugs he sees.
Gaddie knows that the industry is headed for a rough spot. Most of his
colleagues will probably retire in the next decade and he plans to retire in two or
three years, leaving farmers he works with hard-pressed to find a successor.
"There are plenty of opportunities, but kids just are not into it," Gaddie said. "It's
not a glitzy profession."
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