lhfarm
Veteran Member
The following was taken from an article in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" titled "News Analysis: Students May Need a Grounding in Agriculture as Much as in the Liberal Arts" by Scott Carlson. This is a subscription publication (I work at a midwestern university
) or I'd point you to the entire article. But you will get the basic idea of what Mr Carlson has to say:
"Cultivating Agricultural Skills
With the attention that colleges are paying to local foods and to sustainability, perhaps more institutions should offer basic lessons in agricultural skills, as a way to make students familiar with an important American industry, if not to make farmers out of them. Recently, scholars have worried that young people are disconnected from nature, so why not let students carve out a corner of the campus to start a small farm?
In fact, a number of colleges have already tried this. Warren Wilson College is particularly well known for its student-farm work. Goshen College's Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center runs an agroecology program meant to teach "the cultural and practical knowledge needed for a successful, post-fossil-fuel world," according to its Web site.
Indeed, teaching agriculture can mean teaching about the world. Modern agriculture touches on nearly all of the pressing environmental and social issues facing America today--water, energy, immigration, biodiversity, public health, rural poverty, suburban sprawl, climate change, and even religion and ethics.
Farm on the Range
At the request of students, Richard D. (Rik) Smith, an assistant professor of agroecology at the University of Wyoming, helped establish a small farm tended by young men and women in disciplines as diverse as agroecology, English, business, education, anthropology, zoology, and entomology. He says Laramie, Wyo., is a challenging place to learn the rural arts, with a 90-day growing season, 11 inches of rain a year, and constant winds that blow away unprotected topsoil.
Nevertheless, last year the students sold just shy of $1,000 worth of produce and are now planning a greenhouse and a composting program that will recycle waste from the university's food services.
Mr. Smith recently listed for The Chronicle the many things his students have learned in the process, like how to work within a university bureaucracy, write grant proposals, work in groups, plan a business, and market a product. "And, oh yeah, how to grow vegetables and all that entails, from soil fertility to pest management to planting and harvesting methods," he said.
As a society, we seem to cycle back to agricultural roots when anxieties about modern living bubble up. The last time environmental issues and oil prices became major public concerns, society saw a back-to-the-land movement, in which many people moved out to the country and fell flat on their faces, in part because they had forgotten (or, rather, never learned) the basic skills of agricultural living.
Colleges deliver basic skills of all kinds. Should agriculture be part of the mix?"
) or I'd point you to the entire article. But you will get the basic idea of what Mr Carlson has to say:"Cultivating Agricultural Skills
With the attention that colleges are paying to local foods and to sustainability, perhaps more institutions should offer basic lessons in agricultural skills, as a way to make students familiar with an important American industry, if not to make farmers out of them. Recently, scholars have worried that young people are disconnected from nature, so why not let students carve out a corner of the campus to start a small farm?
In fact, a number of colleges have already tried this. Warren Wilson College is particularly well known for its student-farm work. Goshen College's Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center runs an agroecology program meant to teach "the cultural and practical knowledge needed for a successful, post-fossil-fuel world," according to its Web site.
Indeed, teaching agriculture can mean teaching about the world. Modern agriculture touches on nearly all of the pressing environmental and social issues facing America today--water, energy, immigration, biodiversity, public health, rural poverty, suburban sprawl, climate change, and even religion and ethics.
Farm on the Range
At the request of students, Richard D. (Rik) Smith, an assistant professor of agroecology at the University of Wyoming, helped establish a small farm tended by young men and women in disciplines as diverse as agroecology, English, business, education, anthropology, zoology, and entomology. He says Laramie, Wyo., is a challenging place to learn the rural arts, with a 90-day growing season, 11 inches of rain a year, and constant winds that blow away unprotected topsoil.
Nevertheless, last year the students sold just shy of $1,000 worth of produce and are now planning a greenhouse and a composting program that will recycle waste from the university's food services.
Mr. Smith recently listed for The Chronicle the many things his students have learned in the process, like how to work within a university bureaucracy, write grant proposals, work in groups, plan a business, and market a product. "And, oh yeah, how to grow vegetables and all that entails, from soil fertility to pest management to planting and harvesting methods," he said.
As a society, we seem to cycle back to agricultural roots when anxieties about modern living bubble up. The last time environmental issues and oil prices became major public concerns, society saw a back-to-the-land movement, in which many people moved out to the country and fell flat on their faces, in part because they had forgotten (or, rather, never learned) the basic skills of agricultural living.
Colleges deliver basic skills of all kinds. Should agriculture be part of the mix?"
