<p>One is my son’s hs classmates attends Cornell’s School of Agriculture. Many of the children of other local farmers are majoring in non-agricultural subjects.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who lives in Iowa was just telling me about her discussion with a young man from her hometown. He’s going off to college to study computer science, with the goal of coming back to work the family farm. The big agricultural machinery is all computer-controlled now, so that is the “agricultural” degree he needs.</p>
<p>Lots of educated yuppie types going the indie vineyard thing too.</p>
<p>I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Lots and lots of farming and ranching. The biggest club at my highschool was Future Farmers of America. The vast majority of the farmers kids where I grew up went to college. Most went to Cal Poly SLO, UC Davis or Fresno State to studing Ag Science or Ag Business. Some obviously didn’t want to farm, so they studied other things. But those that wanted to take over for the most part went to school. The thing about the SJV is the farms and dairies are major operations, so you need to have a good education to be able to run them.</p>
<p>I live in Iowa and am married to a farmer. I also teach at a high school which would be considered small town/rural. Of a high school class of 180 only 1-2 students consider themselves farmers. There are more who work for farmers, but ownership tends to decide who is truly classified as a farmer.</p>
<p>Less than 2% of the US population are farmers, with the average age at 58. There are very few college aged children of farmers out there right now. With the price of a small farm here in Iowa (100 acres) reaching over 1 million dollars, the more education one has, the better they can manage the vast amounts of money it takes to run this very complicated business.</p>
<p>When my husband and I watch Shark Tank, we always think it’s funny to hear business people talk about sales of $250,000 as a big deal. For a farmer to make a decent living with a combine costing $200,000-$300,000 just to take the crop out, you’d better be making sales larger than that!</p>
<p>I grew up in an area with lots of small family farms. Many of my farm-raised classmates went to college, some returned to the farm, and several of them are now posting proud updates of their children going to college. Just as in previous times, some of those kids will return to the farm and others will go on to other careers. Others found their passion in a different field. Some folks who grew up “in town” have now chosen to reside on small farms as adults. </p>
<p>Interestingly, one of my farmer friends found the Superbowl ad about farmers to be offensive because in her eyes it seemed to be over emphasizing agribusiness.</p>
<p>When I was in college back when the dinos roamed, I had a friend whose family owned a HUGE dairy farm. My friend was getting a business degree at the urging of his parents. That farm was (and still is) a huge business.</p>
<p>My husband’s family is in the dairy business in northern California. The ranch was started by my father-in-law, who graduated from college. My husband’s brother also graduated from college with an agriculture major. He now runs the ranch. His son is interested in running the farm eventually, but his parents encouraged him to major in the business side of the dairy business because you need to be a smart businessman to run and keep solvent a million dollar business! My husband knew he did not want to stay on the ranch so he went to college and became an engineer!</p>
<p>I knew of a family who were potato farmers in Idaho, which sounds all down-on-the-farm-manual-labor-don’t-need-no-fancy-degrees, right? Well, they are the largest potato suppliers to McDonald’s. Their children went to fancy schools and the family as a whole is well-educated, lives a very sophisticated lifestyle and I’m aware of at least one 8-figure donation they made to one of their children’s alma maters.</p>
<p>I would think farming is very much like running a business, more informed you are better you would be at your job. With all the new research and efficient improvement, I think college education in the related field would be helpful.</p>
<p>Future Farmers of America (FFA) and 4-H both give a lot of college scholarships, so they obviously feel that higher education is extremely important to the future of American agriculture. Don’t forget that they also need highly educated lawyers and lobbyists looking out for their interests in Washington D.C.<br>
My brother attends the University of Tennessee and he says that the fastest growing majors at the university are related to agriculture and natural resources – especially soil science. A lot of things may change, but we will always need to eat food, drink water, and breathe air.</p>
<p>Even when I was growing up, many farm families sent their children who planned to farm to NC State.</p>
<p>These days I read a lot about college graduates (often corporate types) buying land in NC and going into organic or “niche” (goats, alpacas) farming, sometimes twenty years after graduating.</p>
<p>Alpha Gamma Rho was, and still is, the largest fraternity at the midwestern state university I attended thirty years ago. Some of those ARP boys returned to run their family farms, but some went on to work in finance with regional banks that work with farmers. Some went on to work in agricultural industries, state agriculture agencies, and other state and federal agencies. The Ag. Majors are diverse and different from anything that ever gets discussed here on CC: Animal Science, plant science, econ., finance, business, all with an emphasis on agriculture.</p>
<p>I went to a large Land Grant school and was an Ag major. There were lots of serious students from farm backgrounds and many who were there to find a spouse.</p>
<p>OP here. It’s been very enlightening reading the responses to my question. I’m encouraged to read that so many farmers feel it’s important for their kids to get a college education. I think it’s very unfortunate that the fathers of my DH’s grand-niece and nephew did not feel the same way. Both fathers were operating very small dairy farms. I believe that the fathers did not value a college education.</p>
<p>I know a multigenerational family of farmers. They all have degrees. The patriarch is a retired lawyer. It’s a big family and they all work the farm but only a few do it fulltime. When they were having a few bad years, those degrees and jobs supplemented each family’s income. </p>
<p>The truth though is that they are tied to the farm. They get jobs as teachers, lawyers and construction(even though they have degrees) in order to stay close to the farm. Nobody is military or corporate or anything that demands a lot of travel and relocation.</p>
<p>I’ll be graduating from highschool this spring and have grown up on a farm in Wisconsin my entire life. My parents have always stressed the importance of education and even made my older brother (someone who wanted NO PART of highschool or college) to go to a 2 year tech school. He’s now back driving truck for us, but his twin sister just graduated from law school this december.</p>
<p>I’ll be attending UW-Madison for engineering or computer science, if anyone cares ;)</p>
<p>When I graduated HS in the early 1980’s the FAFSA (FAF then) counted farmland and equipment value as an asset. Consequently, many (most?) farm kids got very little aid. This, and knowing there was a job waiting, did seem to limit some of the kids attending college. Now the asset value isn’t counted if one lives on the family farm. I think the OP may have a different answer if one is talking about 45 year old parents vs. previous generations.</p>
<p>I live in an agricultural community and have many farm clients. Ag is one of the few industries that has consistently turned a profit during this economic recession. There are so many different ag majors and careers that can be pursued. Many of the land grant universities are well regarded. I would think my kid had good future job options with an ag degree.</p>
<p>As mentioned, the average farmer is 58 years old and most of their kids are post college age. I do know kids here who get the degree and return to the farm. People have this image of the “hick” farmer and it’s wrong. Farming requires a multitude of skill sets and a very high tolerance for debt. It is also extremely capital intensive and technologically oriented. Profit depends as much on being able to market the grain effectively as being able to grow it. Spring input costs are high and neither yield nor crop price is guaranteed…no risk adverse people need apply.</p>
<p>Roninator, </p>
<p>You’re very fortunate to have parents who value a good education. I wish you the best of luck next year at the University of Wisconsin. You can’t go wrong with engineering or computer science.</p>
<p>My father-in-law is a retired farmer. Two of his son’s have master’s degrees and the other one has a bachelor’s. I think he is very happy for and proud of all three of them. One thing I would like to add is that all three of them have incredible work ethic and I attribute that to my father-in-law’s excellent example. :)</p>