A proud refrain of American agriculture is “we feed the world” of many nations and cultures. But U.S. farmers are overwhelmingly white men. Kendall Lamkey, chairman of the department of agronomy at Iowa State University, is trying to diversify the sector by attracting students “from a wider pool – from cities and suburbs, and from minority groups,” says the NPR blog, The Salt.
“The way to re-diversify the landscape is to re-diversify the people in agriculture,” said Lamkey, who began a statewide marketing campaign a decade ago. “There were some people who weren’t happy that we were recruiting people that didn’t think like them into agriculture,” he said. Enrollment in agronomy – the science of soil management and crop production – has tripled since 2006 and the number of minority students has grown from one student in 2006 to 23 today, or 7 percent of undergraduates studying agronomy.
“And it’s not just agronomy. Students who don’t come from family farms are enrolling in other agriculture classes, too,” says The Salt. Still, some women students from the city say they face quiet opposition from students who grew up on the farm if they question the way things are done. “That tension is definitely there,” said one woman student, counter-balanced by support from other students and by the faculty.