African Americans & Agriculture - change in the field of agricutural studies, research by agricultural scientists

Black Issues in Higher Education, June 8, 2000 by Joan Morgan

Scholars say students aren't aware of the unprecedented opportunities to do well -- and to do good -- in this stigmatized field

"I was taught by my parents, who had been sharecroppers, that working on the land or with products from the land was an honorable profession. But many parents and grandparents today tell young men and women about the great hardship associated with slavery."

- Dr. Annie King Associate Dean College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences University of California-Davis

Before applying fertilizer to a field of crops, a farmer starts with a yield map that analyzes the field's needs. The farmer may then use a variable rate applicator machine, so sophisticated that it applies just the right amount of fertilizer to one corner of the field while applying only pesticide to a different area of the field.

Such is the high-tech, computerized world that agricultural production has become today. In fact, the study of agriculture is not just about farming anymore.

Today, with a bachelor's, master's or doctorate in agriculture, you could end up becoming a biosystems engineer, a plant pathologist or an animal scientist with the government. You might workwith seed companies or in a policy and regulatory agency that deals with environmental issues. Or you might become an agricultural economist, or work in marketing, sales or any one of the 99 subspecialties that fall under the discipline.

"There are so many ways to combine agriculture with just about anything ... There's more to it than just picking," says Verneta Gaskins, a 24-year-old graduate student at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore who is currently studying bioinformatics, which combines computer science and agriculture.

Making more students -- particularly African American students -- aware of the myriad options available in the field of agriculture is the challenge faced by educators in the nation's 136 colleges of agriculture.

Enrollment numbers in programs across the country indicate that, as a major, agriculture does not have the appeal of other professions. In the fall of 1999, there were 4,209 African American students studying in agriculture-related fields according preliminary data from the Food and Agricultural Education Information System, a database to which the nation's colleges of agriculture report. This number is miniscule when compared to just about any other major or discipline.

"Part of the problem is that African American professionals and HBCUs have not promoted agriculture as a career," says Dr. Charles Magee, professor and director of biological and agricultural systems engineering at Florida A&M University. "They have promoted medicine and law, and those are fine, but what is more basic than agricultural sciences? Our survival depends on it -- food, fiber and shelter."

Educators say it is crucial for the numbers of African Americans in agriculture to increase. The demographics of a recent poultry science class at the University of Tennessee illustrate the severity of the problem. Out of about 30 students, only two were minorities and only one was African American.

If the situation doesn't change, African Americans may miss out on an epochal change taking place in agriculture and the opportunity to participate in careers that will have an impact on all of mankind in the 21st century. As Magee points out, there is power that comes with controlling this part of the economy.

"A people can never be truly independent as long as all its groceries are in someone else's pantry," he says. "At the present course that we are on, in 10 years we won't have a single Black person in production agriculture. And if we lose all our Blacks out of production agriculture, all our groceries will be in somebody else's pantry."

The Stigma

Educators say a big part of the problem is that the professions of agricultural education and food production often are stigmatized in the minds of students, particularly African American students.

Dr. Annie King, associate dean at the college of agricultural and environmental sciences at the University of California-Davis says she has found that students shy away from agriculture.

"I was taught by my parents, who had been sharecroppers, that working on the land or with products from the land was an honorable profession," King says. "But many parents and grandparents today tell young men and women about the great hardship associated with slavery or they speak about dirty, hard work with Iow pay, or even the loss of family-owned farms.

"Students bring these stories forward with them into high school and college, thus missing many new, rewarding experiences and careers," she adds.

An earlier generation's attitude about working the land has left a rich legacy in agricultural education at many historically Black colleges. At Tuskegee University, for example, there is pride in the fact that Dr. George Washington Carver started his own version of farm education extension by visiting area farmers with his renowned Jesup wagon, a wagon he outfitted as a mobile classroom.