Growing an Education
A curve in the never-ending pavement of the freeway takes the car around a hill. As the turn is made, little faces press up against the windows on the right side of the car. There are no worries about noses being squished as the children squeal in delight at the cows that are grazing on the lush, green hillsides. A race takes place, to see who can count the most calves before the car follows the road around another hill and the cattle disappear from sight. While all children are enchanted by cattle, goats, sheep, horses, pigs, ducks, and anything else that they do not have at home, it seems that they have little knowledge of what these animals’ true purpose is. Children attending public schools are currently not exposed to enough agriculture in their classes. The need for agriculture education is growing; the public needs to be informed of how successful agriculture is in the Golden State of California, the wide range of life skills that agriculture can teach students, and how many future career options there are in the field of agriculture.
One common misconception is that the term “agriculture” refers only to farming. According the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, agriculture is the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and the preparation and marketing of the resulting products. While farming is a major aspect of agriculture, the term also applies to the preparation and marketing of the items produced by the farmers. While the term “agriculture” refers to a very broad range of subjects, many people are unaware of how important agriculture is. If students in the American public education system where taught about agriculture, the industry would earn more of th...
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...ne, students and adults, will be able to live by the words of the FFA Creed, so that we all may “believe that American agriculture can and will hold true to the best traditions of our nation life…” (FFA: Who We Are” 1).
Works Cited
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“94 Years Protecting and Promoting Agriculture in the Golden State.” CDFA. 2014. Web. 24 March 2014.
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Corn soon became the crop of choice to Iowa farmers. They found that it was more resistant to disease than the other crops they were growing, such as barley, oats, wheat, and apples. With this newfound “wonder crop”, Iowans found that farming had become the ideal way of life. Working on the farm involved all of the members of the family, which brought them together and made them stronger through hardships and great opportunities.
From the early beginnings of America to well into the nineteenth century, America has been dominantly an agricultural country. Farming and the country life have always been a great part of the American culture. Thomas Jefferson even expressed his gratitude for the farming class by saying
As you walk to the other end of the stage and look out into the sea of blue and gold corduroy, you realize this it! This is the moment you’ve worked toward for the last four years. You’ve stayed long hours after school working on you record book, spent grueling hours memorizing speeches, experienced the joy of winning first place at a state CDE contest, and best of all you met so many amazing people and doors were opened to opportunities you never imagined. Finally, after all of your hard work, you’re receiving your State FFA Degree! All of this from making one simple decision your freshman year of high school, signing up for the FFA. What you didn’t realize at the time was that this wonderful organization would help you build leadership skills and teach life skills that you are going to need in the coming years.
In his 2009 article “The Omnivore’s Delusion”, Blake Hurst takes a stand against the numerous non-farmers who are attempting, and in some cases succeeding, to degrade and ‘clean’ the farming industry. Hurst’s main points of contention are the lack of true knowledge these intellectuals have on the inner workings of today’s farms and their insistent belief that the farmers themselves “…are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families” (24).
Fast food consumption is taking America by a storm and it is for the sake of our lives. Fast food relies heavily on industrialized corn because of how cheap and easy to grow it is. With that being said, animals are being fed with corn rather than being fed with grass. In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Rich Blair who runs a “cow-calf” operation s...
On one of my parents’ first dates together, my father described cattle they drove past as “amazing creatures” telling my mother someday he would like to have land and livestock of his own. That wish to transition from the big city to the country led him to buy a house in the middle of nowhere Indiana, soon raising his own amazing livestock. Growing up, I often complained about the amount of work living on a farm entailed, from cleaning pens to taking care of my 4-H animals. But my dad never complained because such duties were his reward for starting an idea from scratch. Following his footsteps in pursuit of a dream of my own, I chose to attend a large university where I studied abroad to contrast and challenge my rural perspective. Through that transition, I began to respect the difficulties my father experienced following his goal. And while the responsibilities he undertakes are stressful and uncertain, I now
...o. “The Great Agricultural Transition: Crisis, Change, and Social Consequence of the Twentieth Century US Farming”. Annual Review of Sociology 27 (2001): 103-124.
Agriculture plays an enormous part in having a functioning society. The farming fields in the
In recent history, farming in America has changed dramatically, and Naylor’s farm is representative of many in the American Corn Belt. Though it began growing a variety of crops and keeping livestock too, Naylor now only plants corn and soybeans. In Naylor’s grandfather’s days, the farm fed the whole family with just enough left over for twelve others. Now, Naylor indirectly feeds an estimated 129 people, but this does not mean his farm is any more successful. In fact, Naylor’s farm cannot financially support his family.
Agriculture is not all work and no play. Many advances can be made in the understanding of agriculture by making available a variety of methods to provide children with a hands-on experience and also educating all individuals about the importance of the practice. The ignorance of urban communities can be overcome with the help of organizations and people within the community. School visits, hands-on experiences, volunteers and organizations are just a few examples of the steps that can be taken to educate Americans about agriculture and close the gap between rural and urban populations.
America focuses heavily on its livestock and crops earning us a major role in global trade as a farming nation. Unfortunately this has led to some poor choices in treatment of our animals. Many farmers who believe in animal rights say that it started back when farmers only tended to fewer animals, “Ownership of farm animals became concentrated in fewer hands, and flocks and herds grew larger. As a result, the individuality of animals was lost to their owners and they began receding from most people's everyday life” (Namit 29). When people lost their connection to the animals that provided their food, the quality of the animal's lives began to dramatically decrease. Consumers constantly pushed farmers to their limits with high quotas. To keep up with demands agriculturalists turned to some unorthodox practices to keep costs low and still maintain their annual quotas; “To raise efficiency and cut costs, farm animals began to be engineered for abnormally rapid weight gain, fed unnatu...
So overall, Agriculture is playing a very important role in changing the lifestyle of different people. Agriculture might have made everything easy for us but it still has its cons. We see the effects of agriculture and how it affects the lives of other species and the environment.
It’s simple, we have a population that is growing at a rate that we’ve never seen before. Agriculturalist have to figure out a way to produce, market, and transport more food than we’ve ever produce before. If you like to eat or have clothing you like to wear we need to educate people about the process of producing the food and fiber and how to get it to market. Agriculture is an industry where there’s a less amount of people in production agriculture dealing with less amount of land however, they are needing to produce more food for the world than we have ever had to before. Being able to learn beyond the formal setting is crucial to making achieving our goal. Not only educating the people in the industry but also educating people that benefit from the industry. We love sharing our story about how we contribute to the industry and how we work so hard to provide the world with a safe and wholesome product. It is so important that everyone understands the basis of agriculture. To understand where your food comes for is a right that everyone has and we are more than happy to educate everyone on how and why we do certain things to produce the food and
To understand why is agriculture important in the world of today, then first of all we must know what agriculture is? Agriculture is the basic material production of society, the use of land for agriculture and livestock, mining plants and animals as raw materials and labor to produce mainly food and some raw materials for industry. Agriculture is a major industry, covering many disciplines: planting, breeding and processing of agricultural products; in the broadest sense, also including forestry and fisheries. Agriculture is an important economic sector in the economy of many countries, especially in the past century , when the industry has not yet developed. Since the dawn of history, agriculture has been one of the importance means of producing