Technology reshaping agriculture industry, opening up new job opportunities

California is an agricultural powerhouse. However, the state is faced with a crisis of a rapidly declining farming industry with an aging producer population. 

Statistics show that young people are less interested in the industry as it carries a stigma of grueling manual labor, even as technology transforms the field. This is causing challenges for the agricultural industry to attract young workers, many who continue to have outdated perceptions about the profession. 

Less than 10% of farmers are under the age of 35, and in 2022, the number of producers between the ages of 35 and 64 declined 9%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2022 Census. The census also reports that the number of producers over 65 increased 12%, boosting the average age of those in the field.

“Young people, when they think about agriculture, they think about manual labor, hard labor in the field, low technology,” said Francois Korn, founder of Bay Area-based agricultural education companies SeedQuest and Seed Central. “You have the people in the field, and they are the ones that are the most visible from your car when you drive down the road.” 

Often, jobs in agriculture beyond manual labor in the field go unnoticed. As technology influences this growing industry, those views are refuted. 

“One of the big misunderstandings about agriculture is so many people think it’s just production farming. But there’s more than 350 careers in agriculture,” said Kristy Meyer, communications manager for the national Future Farmers of America (FFA). “So, it’s not just production farming. … It’s biotechnology, veterinary science, food science, [agriculture] communications, [agriculture] business.”

FFA is a national organization with chapters in schools across the country. Students can access educational resources and workshops through their school’s FFA membership. FFA partners with school agriculture programs to share information about the agricultural industry, and gives students a real-world experience of what working in agriculture is really like, eliminating the stigma around it and exposing students to jobs beyond the growing fields.

“Some of those might be animal science classes, or they might be just a general [agriculture] ed class,” Meyer explained. “We really rely on those FFA advisers and those [agriculture] ed instructors to share that information with their students about how broad and diverse the agriculture industry is on the national level. And we really strive to encourage our students to look at all the different career opportunities.”

Tapanga Lewis, a 12th grader at Liberty High School in Brentwood, is part of the FFA and 4-H programs at her school. She said students at her school don’t take agriculture seriously as a career.

“At my school, I definitely think agriculture is a bit taken for granted, and I feel like a lot of teenagers aren’t interested in it,” Lewis said. “I know that there are a large number of kids who are in FFA, but I think that some of those people get thrown into agriculture classes and have to be in FFA, so they don’t really know what it’s about.”

As a part of the two programs, Lewis gets to raise and feed two farm animals – a pig and a lamb.

“I raise a pig through FFA, but you also have to be enrolled in an FFA class to be able to be involved in it,” Lewis said, whose lamb is part of 4-H. “So I’m in animal science this year, but you usually start with Intro to Agriculture or Agriculture Bio, and it usually replaces a science class. These classes teach you a lot about agriculture, and you could do SAE projects, which are supervised agricultural experience projects.”

Susan Ebeler, associate dean of Undergraduate Academic Programs for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis, said that technology continues to open up many potential jobs and careers in the field. 

“Increasingly, we’re trying to balance aspects of agriculture with technology tools and using them in smart ways, so that we’re also cognizant of the greater social and community impacts of the use of these tools,” Ebeler said. “So we’re not necessarily just replacing people, but the jobs that come with agriculture now are just going to be different.”

Ebeler said that the agricultural industry is evolving to make jobs less dangerous with less manual labor.

“Environmental technology is all about using artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, sensors, to support sustainable agriculture, food production and really help to understand how to produce food and to grow crops much more sustainably,” Ebeler added. “We use this type of information to maybe use less water or to use different types of technologies to help with things that are mostly manual labor, very tedious or dangerous kinds of things, various repetitive motions and injuries.”

Knowledge is power

According to the National Library of Medicine, the declining interest in agriculture-related jobs can affect many significant aspects of people’s daily lives. 

“From the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the fuel that’s put in our cars, agriculture is everywhere, and I think sometimes people don’t realize … how important it is in everyday life,” Meyer said. “To know where your food comes from, to know where those fibers come from on your clothing. It’s an opportunity to explore a lot of careers … and to be that next generation of leaders who are going to clothe and fuel the world.”

Korn said that working in agriculture can be a rewarding experience to make an impact in multiple communities by providing them with essential resources. 

“Young people, many young people, not all, but many young people these days would like to do their bit about making the world a better place,” Korn said. “Everything, our entire world, our entire society, rests on one fundamental thing, which is eating every day. If you are a young person, and you want to make the world a better place, you can work at the very base of the most important food chain.”

Ebeler agrees, saying that agriculture is a diverse industry with many opportunities to make an impact on the world.

“There are just so many different directions that you can go, and we there’s so many questions that we’re trying to answer and solve, and there is just an opportunity to really have an impact on our world, to be able to feed people, but do it in a way that’s sustainable while we still protect our resources,” Ebeler said.

Organizations like Seed Central and Future Farmers of America aim to disprove the stigma around agricultural jobs by educating high school and college students on what careers in this field hold beyond working “in the field.” 

“We really help our students understand that there’s a lot of opportunities in the agriculture industry,” Meyer said. “In addition, we really focus on our leadership and our FFA members often give a lot back to their communities through community service.”

Seed Central partners with seed companies and farms in the Davis area to take local college students to see a day in the life of people working at these companies.

“We pick up students from campus and go visit companies in the region,” Korn said. “We spend two to three hours visiting the company, and that’s an immense benefit for the students.”

Seed Central also has a two-month program where students are paired with different people who work in sectors of agriculture and farming.

College courses

Today, agriculture- and biology-related majors and programs at UC Davis are adopting new technologies to attract youth (under 18). One of the university’s newer majors is Agricultural and Environmental Technology, where students learn how agriculture influences communities, as well as the role agriculture plays in community planning and making sure people get fresh produce and natural resources to maximize sustainability. Another – that focuses more on community planning with natural resources – is Community and Regional Development.

“All of our majors really combine those things, and we really try hard to have students come out with an understanding that the really challenging questions about producing enough food for the world in the future are going to be around areas where this integration is going to be important for finding the solution,” Ebeler said. 

The UC Davis associate dean added that with a growing focus on sustainability and the integration of food production, technology in agriculture is shifting the way producers and consumers view an ever-changing world.

“[We are] making sure we are preserving our natural resources, air, water, soil quality, and also thinking about making sure that food is healthy and economical for people, and that we are creating communities that are healthy and can live in these areas,” Ebeler said.

Keerthi Eraniyan is a 10th grader at California High School in San Ramon.