With over a million eager-to-learn secondary agricultural education students in the United States and across the five U.S. territories, the future of agriculture seems bright. However, the number of agricultural educators is dwindling, leaving the question of who is going to continue to teach the next generation of agriculturalists?

Agriculture holds many career opportunities for a variety of people. With agriculture employing a little over 10% of Americans, it’s vital that students are exposed to the many job opportunities the industry has to offer. Through agricultural education classes, youth learn the importance of the agricultural industry and become well-equipped with leadership, employment and communication skills.

Agricultural education teachers are the backbone of exposing students to opportunities and agricultural content in schools. This position allows individuals to make a positive impact on the industry by educating and informing the next generation of agriculturalists.

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Kristen Welch is a secondary agricultural education teacher and FFA adviser at Elbert School in Elbert, Colo.

“I think agricultural education provides a unique advantage in college and career readiness for students. We have a balanced approach between class instruction, supervised individual projects, placement-based learning, and leadership and professional skills development through the FFA,” Welch said.

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Much like many general education teachers today, the number of secondary agricultural education teachers is at a decline. Welch says she always has a full slate when it comes to teaching and advising FFA. Frequently she devotes lots of time to her students on the weekend and during the summer months for conventions, volunteer opportunities and county fairs.

DEALING WITH BURNOUT

Rural teacher burnout is often connected with the generalist role rural educators have. Welch, along with her duties of being the FFA adviser and agricultural education teacher, also teaches basic biology leaving her with little time to prepare for her other classes.

Welch explains that strong administrative support is one solution to decrease burnout. “The school I am at in Elbert, even though we’re a young program, I feel like we have a tremendous amount of community and administrative support making my job better,” Welch said.

The National Center for Education Statistics recently reported that the total annual turnover rate for schools in America is 16%, with 8 percent of teachers typically from low-income schools leaving the profession entirely. This means that on average a school will lose three out of every 20 teachers. In rural schools where finding qualified educators can be difficult, these numbers can be detrimental to the district.

“I think unfortunately you’ll have agricultural teachers come to a realization that they could be working the same amount of hours and be paid better elsewhere. I definitely think teaching salaries in general are an issue when it comes to retaining and attracting good teachers,” Welch said. “If we want to attract and keep high-quality candidates in all subject areas, we need to figure out a better pay scale.”

Home-growing agricultural educators is a strategy that can help ensure that there are qualified individuals who are well-equipped to teach agricultural programs in rural communities. The Tagged to Teach Ag program by the National Teach Ag Campaign focuses on recruiting and “tagging” secondary FFA and agricultural students to pursue a degree in agricultural education at their local land grant college. Programs like this encourage students to think about a career in education and offer them incentives to do so. Students who grew up in a rural school and participated in agricultural education classes are likelier to begin agricultural programs or even return to their hometowns to be an educator.

Assistant Agricultural Education Lecturer at the University of Wyoming, Rosemary McBride, has served in her position at the university for a little over a year and has been in the teaching profession for 14 years. “At all levels, we have 34 agricultural education students as of January 2024 here at the University of Wyoming,” McBride said. “The university has three student teachers in the field this spring semester, then we’ll have one next fall and six next spring.”

McBride expressed that the need for more qualified agricultural education teachers is on the rise because seasoned teachers are beginning to retire or look for different career opportunities opening up positions all around the U.S. “There’s a lot of students once graduated that go to other states with more job openings like in Texas and Colorado,” McBride said.

McBride acknowledges Wyoming’s effort to create competitive teaching salaries. “Wyoming probably pays the best for agricultural teachers and offers 12-month or extended contracts making Wyoming a competitive state for agricultural education careers,” McBride said.

Finding a definitive solution to agricultural education teacher turnover is not certain; however, raising and having competitive salaries nationwide will be the most important factor in retaining and attracting qualified educators. Students are impacted by their agricultural teachers every day, collectively policymakers need to ensure sufficient funding in order to provide students with well-equipped and qualified agricultural education instructors.

“Regardless of the problems that we have with teacher retention and teacher recruitment, there are people who were so highly affected by their upbringing within their high school agricultural education programs and FFA, that there are fortunately still a lot of people who are passionate about agriculture and who are committed to raising the next generation of agriculturalists,” Welch said. “Ultimately, I think the blue and gold of FFA runs deep in the blood of agricultural education teachers and students and if not for that, the future of agriculture would probably be in a lot more trouble.”

Vogl is an undergraduate majoring in agricultural communications at the University of Wyoming.