Job hopes drawing students to ag schools

CHAMPAIGN – Tristesse Jones probably never will drive a tractor or guide a combine through rows of soybeans at harvest time.

There isn’t a farm within miles of where she grew up on Chicago’s west side, but she’s set to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in crop sciences from the University of Illinois’ agriculture school next spring.

“People ask me what is my major, and they say, ‘What is that? So you want to grow plants?’” Jones said.

She is one of a growing number of students being drawn to ag schools around the country not by ties to a farm but by science, the job prospects for those who are good at it and, for some, an interest in the environment.

Enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs in agriculture across the country grew by 21.8 percent from 2005 to 2008, from about 58,300 students to nearly 71,000, according to surveys conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the numbers likely are higher – not all schools respond to the surveys.

National enrollment figures for 2009 aren’t available, but numbers from major schools make clear the trend continues: The University of California-Davis has more than 5,490 students enrolled in agricultural majors – a jump of 210 from a year earlier. Purdue University has 2,575 ag students this fall, up 40 from last year.

Yet the number of farms nationwide has dropped for decades. There were about 2.4 million farms in the United States in 1978, and 2.2 million last year, according to the USDA.

Many students are choosing to major in agriculture, educators from across the country say, after finding out that much of what they’ll learn is science – biology, chemistry and a long list of more specialized areas that can land them jobs at companies that produce the seeds and chemicals for farmers or in still-forming industries like biofuels.