New Farm Ideas Through Youth Education
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
The statement, “change isn’t easy,” rings especially true on the farm. Change comes with a lot of risks and for farmers that means risks to their business and their livelihood. However, what if new ideas can take root through educating the youth? That philosophy was developed over a hundred years ago here in the U.S. and is now being applied in other countries through AgriCorps, a non-profit founded by Trent McKnight.
McKnight… “Their original creation was really a behavioral change model to reach farmers who were resistant to change, and there's a number of different reasons. It's not just farmers who are resistant to change. The older we get, the more resistant we are to change and the more risk-averse we become for a number of really important reasons. And there were some smart people who figured out that one of the ways to reach adults and particularly farmers, was through their children, and that we could de-risk these innovations. We could de-risk a hybrid corn variety in Iowa by giving a pail of hybrid corn to a 12-year-old 4-Her to go back and get his father to give him one acre of land and to plant it exactly like the extension agent told him to. And then that kid would certainly outproduce his father because he was using hybrid corn. And then the next year, the pioneer seed reps came and sold that hybrid corn to those farmers.”
Again, that’s the founder of AgriCorps, Trent McKnight.
