ST. PAUL (AP) – It’s not just farm kids in the region’s agriculture colleges anymore.
It’s students like Jillian Rankins from Eau Claire, Wis., a sophomore at the University of Minnesota who hadn’t heard of the FFA future farmers group before she got to college. Her studies are in management and economics, not crops and livestock.
Rankins and her fellow students from urban backgrounds are welcomed by agriculture colleges as they reposition themselves to provide for a world that needs fewer dairy farmers and agronomists and more food scientists, veterinarians and nutritionists.