Southeast student will promote ag education

When Rylyn Small began his freshman year of high school, he hid in the back of the classroom to avoid speaking to others. But his agriculture teacher helped Small break out of his comfort zone and discover a passion for agriculture.

Now, a sophomore at Southeast Missouri State University, Small is among 12 future agriculture teachers who will spend the next year promoting agricultural education to thousands of students as a National Teach Ag Ambassador.

The Teach Ag Ambassador program is a component of the National Teach Ag Campaign, an initiative to bring attention to the career of agricultural education and to support current agriculture teachers.

Small, of East Prairie, Missouri, will help at the National FFA Convention and will work in Missouri to develop recruitment and retention plans for agricultural educators.

"Here in Missouri, we're really struggling to keep ag education majors because of the ag industry, which is not a bad deal," Small said. "But for us to continue the growth of ag education here in the state, we need our ag ed majors to stick with the teaching profession instead of going into industry."

Rylyn Small

Agriculture education majors are lured away from that career path by companies offering larger salaries, Small said. Some students also don't understand what agriculture entails.

"We're growing strong leaders now in this profession, but we just need more," he said. "We're not filling the need for ag educators, because the ag industry is growing every day. We need ag teachers to start in that classroom to be able to grow professional leaders and to grow strong leaders for this industry in the future."

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Monday announced a new report showing "tremendous demand" for recent college graduates with a degree in agricultural programs, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

An estimated 57,900 high-skilled job openings are expected annually in the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources and environment fields.

An employment outlook report released Monday by the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Purdue University says there is an average 35,400 new graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher in agriculture-related fields -- 22,500 short of the jobs available annually.

The report projects almost half the job opportunities will be in management and business, the release said.

Another 27 percent will be in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas. Jobs in food and biomaterials production will make up 15 percent, and 12 percent of the openings will be in education, communication and governmental services.

"Not only will those who study agriculture be likely to get well-paying jobs upon graduation, they will also have the satisfaction of working in a field that addresses some of the world's most pressing challenges," Vilsack said in the release. "These jobs will become more important as we continue to develop solutions to feed more than 9 billion people by 2050."

Mike Aide, chairman of the Department of Agriculture at Southeast, said several factors influence the agriculture teacher shortage.

"The private sector is offering very good salaries to highly competent educators to work within their organizations," he said. And "there is just a shortage of teachers, period. To make it more interesting, many schools are bringing back their FFA programs."

Aide said there is a "resurrection of the whole concept of FFA," with modernized curriculum and substantial student interest.

"Part of the student interest and the growth in the student programs, the agriculture community realizes the number of jobs that are out there," he said.

Six years ago, Southeast's agriculture department had about 185 students, Aide said. Now, it has more than 400. Many of the students study agribusiness and agriculture production and likely will work for large companies such as John Deere, DuPont Pioneer and Case IH.

"The list keeps going on and on," he said of the companies. "And it's also true in horticulture."

As Small encourages students to become agriculture teachers, he'll share how he's grown from being involved with agriculture courses.

It was Small's teacher who helped him find his niche in agriculture, and he wants to let others know they also can have an impact on students' lives by being agriculture teachers.

As Small sat in the back of the classroom, the teacher encouraged him to go to an FFA meeting.

"I walked in, and all the chapter officers there were welcoming me in," he recalled. "I felt like I was in my own little family there that night."

His junior year, he began a supervised agricultural experience project and started raising beef cattle.

"It turned into diversified livestock production," he said, adding he owned sheep, goats, 12 head of longhorn cattle and bucking ponies.

He now is a stock contractor for his own rodeo business, as well as a rodeo announcer.

"The last three years, it has really boomed," he said. "It started out with 200 contestants the first year and has turned into even more."

As he shares his experiences with students, he said he hopes it will create in them the same passion for the agriculture industry.

"And if they want to, grow a passion for a career in ag education," he said. "But, then again, I want to unearth a purpose in their life. I don't want them to just go in and have a passion for it, but I want them to have a purpose.

"If we as ag educators and National Teach Ag Ambassadors go in head first and tell our personal story of how we've grown from the experience and how we want to impact students just like our ag teachers have impacted us, I think that will kind of spark action in these students' lives."

klamb@semissourian.com

388-3639