Introducing students to agriculture beyond the strenuous work in the fields was the impetus for the $274,128 United States Department of Agriculture grant awarded earlier this month to the Stan State Agriculture Program.
The grant for “Recruiting and Preparing Underrepresented Hispanic Students for Careers in Agriculture through Experiential Learning Programs,” is the fourth USDA grant the agriculture department has received for this and similar purposes since 2015 and the second largest during that time.
Spread over three years, the money will fund student scholarships, pay for summer camps to introduce incoming high school and community college students to the vast network of agriculture opportunities and support student research projects.
“Interest in (agriculture) is low among Hispanic students,” said Oluwarotimi Odeh, professor and Rolland Starn Endowed Chair of Agriculture at Stan State. “We’re trying to change that. Some of them are from families who work in the fields and they see it as not a good career choice for their parents, brothers and sisters. There’s a stigma about agriculture; that it’s only working in the field with low wages, barely minimum wage.”
Odeh said he emphasizes to students in the programs that field work is only one part of the agriculture industry.
“We’re surrounded by so many agriculture companies: Del Monte, Hilmar Cheese, Foster Farms. Yosemite Farm Credit is an agriculture bank and they come to our classes and recruit our students,” Odeh said. “Their HR does interviews with our students. If they see these, they see agriculture is not all about what they see in the fields every day.”
Currently about 100 students major in agriculture. Odeh hopes to see that number grow, and the grant money should help.
Odeh wrote the grant proposal with input from fellow Agriculture Professor Constanza Zavalloni, Economics Professor Ayuba Seidu and Geography Professor Dr. Augustine Avwunudiogba. All four of them will be involved in the planned summer camps, as will current and former students of the Agriculture Program.
Avwunudiogba also was named a USDA E. Kika De La Garza Science Fellow earlier this year. In June, he attended a two-week program in Washington, D.C. and collaborated with leading scientists from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service.