College of Agriculture BuildingBy Scott Carlson
March 21, 2008 -- Two related items about agriculture-one unsettling, the other hopeful-made news recently.
In the frightening-and-depressing category, The New York Times carried an article about the Arctic seed vault, which is built to withstand earthquakes and bomb blasts. It is meant to preserve seeds of all kinds, so that agriculture-the foundation of civilization-may have a second chance in the event of a worldwide catastrophe.
The second item was a short essay in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star by Joe Holmes, a student at George Mason University. Worried about global warming, peak oil, overpopulation, species extinction, and so on, Mr. Holmes has decided to soothe his anxiety by starting a backyard garden, as a lesson in basic agriculture. "I'm treating it like my practice run," he wrote. "I want to learn the ways of the soil now, while it is not yet necessary for my survival to do so."
The juxtaposition of the two items poses a question: Even if seeds survive climate change and mass extinction in a bombproof vault, will anyone remember how to cultivate them? It's a safe bet that many Americans have never set foot on a working farm and have no clue how farmers coax the most common vegetables out of the ground.
Before World War II, there were almost seven million farms in the United States. Today, according to government statistics, there are about 2.1 million farms, with 1.2 million people claiming farming as their principal occupation. The average age of those farmers is 55. About 74,000 farms, or 3.5 percent, accounted for more than 60 percent of the market value of agricultural products sold in 2002, the most recent farm-census figure available. Varieties of food have been lost for the sake of efficiency: Everyone has had a Red Delicious or a Granny Smith apple, but who has tried a Sierra Beauty, a Kidd's Orange Red, a Calville Blanc d'Hiver, or a King of Tompkins?
With the attention that colleges are paying to local foods and to sustainability, perhaps more institutions should offer basic lessons in agricultural skills, as a way to make students familiar with an important American industry, if not to make farmers out of them. Recently, scholars have worried that young people are disconnected from nature, so why not let students carve out a corner of the campus to start a small farm?
In fact, a number of colleges have already tried this. Warren Wilson College is particularly well known for its student-farm work. Goshen College's Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center runs an agroecology program meant to teach "the cultural and practical knowledge needed for a successful, post-fossil-fuel world," according to its Web site.
Indeed, teaching agriculture can mean teaching about the world. Modern agriculture touches on nearly all of the pressing environmental and social issues facing America today-water, energy, immigration, biodiversity, public health, rural poverty, suburban sprawl, climate change, and even religion and ethics.
At the request of students, Richard D. (Rik) Smith, an assistant professor of agroecology at the University of Wyoming, helped establish a small farm tended by young men and women in disciplines as diverse as agroecology, English, business, education, anthropology, zoology, and entomology. He says Laramie, Wyo., is a challenging place to learn the rural arts, with a 90-day growing season, 11 inches of rain a year, and constant winds that blow away unprotected topsoil.
Nevertheless, last year the students sold just shy of $1,000 worth of produce and are now planning a greenhouse and a composting program that will recycle waste from the university's food services.
Mr. Smith recently listed for The Chronicle the many things his students have learned in the process, like how to work within a university bureaucracy, write grant proposals, work in groups, plan a business, and market a product. "And, oh yeah, how to grow vegetables and all that entails, from soil fertility to pest management to planting and harvesting methods," he said.
As a society, we seem to cycle back to agricultural roots when anxieties about modern living bubble up. The last time environmental issues and oil prices became major public concerns, society saw a back-to-the-land movement, in which many people moved out to the country and fell flat on their faces, in part because they had forgotten (or, rather, never learned) the basic skills of agricultural living.
Colleges deliver basic skills of all kinds. Should agriculture be part of the mix?
