Fewer farmers, but more farm jobs: Charles City agricultural programs focus on growing farm industry

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

In 2017, there were 8,000 fewer farms in the United States than there were the year before. In Iowa, there were 500 fewer.

While the amount of farmland has remained about the same, survey after survey has shown that the number of people who list some kind of farming as their primary occupation has been in steep decline for quite some time.

And yet, in Charles City, FFA and other agricultural classes at the school not only remain well-populated with students, but their numbers are growing.

“One of the biggest challenges is the logistics of getting all these kids everywhere,” said Bret Spurgin, who is in his first year as a vocational agricultural teacher at Charles City, and is also an FFA youth advisor.

“It’s unique — I don’t know if it’s like this at every school — but at our school, we have so many kids involved who want to do something, we scramble to find something for everyone to participate in,” said Jim Lundberg, who has held the same position as Spurgin at Charles City for 35 years now. “I never want to say no to a kid who wants to participate. We want to find a place for all these kids.”

Lundberg came to Charles City to teach ag right out of college at Iowa Stare, and Spurgin taught ag classes elsewhere for seven years before starting here at the beginning of this school year.

“The community support for the ag program and the FFA is unlike anywhere that I’ve been before,” Spurgin said. “To build a strong FFA chapter you really need a lot of good community support, people to reach out to.”

“It’s people-driven, anytime we’re successful with a program like this,” said Charles City High School Principal Josh Johnson. “Jim’s been here 35 years, Bret has come in, and in a year, he’s right in stride. He hasn’t missed a beat as an ag teacher, and he’s brought us more opportunities.”

FFA has grown to more than 140 students in the last few years. The numbers have risen to the point where the district is adding another ag teacher, specializing in horticulture. Jodie Johnson, an Iowa State alum from Aplington, will also continue with what Spurgin has done in his first year, bringing more middle school students into FFA and ag.

“We attract more kids because we have more class offerings,” Lundberg said. “Once the kids get down here, they get established, they see it’s something they want to do, and they get more involved.”

“There are fewer farmers, but the number of people it takes to support those farmers continues to increase,” said Lundberg. “Drivers licensed to spray fields, mechanics who can program tractors for auto-steer and GPS, finance, insurance, Realtors, journalists, farm construction, information technologists, code writers — people who can do these things are really employable right now, and that’s going to continue to grow.”

Lundberg and Spurgin both said that they aren’t teaching farmers as much as they’re teaching students to excel in that growing farm industry.

“We maybe don’t need as many farmers anymore, but the people that support farmers, there’s so many occupations in that,” Lundberg said. “We’ve gone from production agriculture to more horticulture, ag business, natural resources, ag mechanics — all the fringes of agriculture that support the ag industry.”

The school district and the local FFA chapter have adjusted to serve students interested in those growing agricultural-related vocations. The district has become more versatile, and has broken down barriers between agriculture and industrial tech classes — as well as barriers in other departments.

“The barriers from 35 and 40 years ago, when this was considered just a program for farm kids, I think the national FFA organization has done a really good job of helping all of us break those barriers down,” Lundberg said. “The kids don’t think of it as ‘I have to be a farm kid to be in an ag class.’ I think that’s been a huge change.”

The Charles City FFA even has a student journalist/reporter, who writes up articles and takes photos of FFA events.

“That’s another thing I would like to get into, having students with an interest in journalism or communications being able to do that,” said Spurgin. “It may not always be through the classes, but being able to do it through the FFA is a great opportunity.”

“There are thousands of occupations at their fingertips,” said Johnson. “There’s a growing list of experiences we can give these kids, and that’s what we want, to give them as many experiences as we can in four years.”

Johnson was quick to point out the “Tiny House” project as an example. The project has pulled together the skills and interests of students in art, agriculture construction, business, math and communications classes  — among many others —  to design, budget for, build and promote the house.

“Something like the Tiny House brings more kids through,” said Johnson. “A year ago, we were looking at lower numbers of kids coming through the industrial tech wing of the building. By combining ag and industrial arts, it’s brought probably about 60-80 new students. So if you take a third of those and put them into FFA, your numbers are going to start rising.”

Lundberg said projects like the Tiny House connect the ag program with other programs in the school, and also connect the school with the community.

“It’s kind of a change in our philosophy at the high school,” he said. “We’re trying to continue to teach as many mechanical trade skills as we possibly can, but in a different way.”

Lundberg said it’s an agriculture class, but the skills are transferable.

“The kids don’t know if they’re walking into an agriculture class or an industrial tech class,” he said. “To them, it’s a welding class, or an electricity class, or a plumbing class. The kids really don’t care what our teaching licenses say, they just know that we can teach those classes.”

The project gives students the opportunity to get real-world experience. Lundberg said the class has had local certified carpenters, plumbers and more come in and work with the students.

“Today we have a licensed electrician coming in to teach the kids the wiring, to make it up to code,” he said. “They’ve done most of the wiring on their own, but we need a licensed electrician to make sure it passes code. What a great opportunity, for the kids to get to work with a licensed electrician.”

Lundberg said that the success of agricultural programs at Charles City comes from the top.

“I’ve always had good administrators, but the opportunities we’ve had the last five years, we haven’t had those before, so a lot of credit goes to Dr. Cox and Mr. Johnson and the rest of the administration,” he said.

“I hope that continues as we go through this change in administration, and I hope that becomes a priority of the school board, as it hires people,” Lundberg said. “It’s not often you get a group of administrators who see the value in these programs the same way we see it.”