Millenials in Ag

At a recent state career development event in Moscow, put on by the U of I's Agricultural Department, far more people came out to attend than were expected, the majority of them being FFA members. Jim Connors, UI Agricultural and Extension Education Department head talked with me. "960 FFA members, advisors, parents and guests. That is about 250 people more than attended last year in 2014. I think some of the reasons that our numbers could be up is that the agriculture education programs in Idaho are expanding. I do a lot of stories about the graying of the American farmer. I think one of the real positives you can take out of this attendance is that with growing numbers of FFA members, does that mean that there is now an increasing interest in agriculture on the part of millennials? I think young students are now interested in agriculture. Over the last few years we have included different competitive events, career development events. Some of the new ones include ag communications, a marketing plan where students take a business and develop a marketing plan for that business, food science is a growing area. We have expanded the number of teams in the food science area this year, more technology, so I think there is a growing interest in agriculture from students out there."