Suburban farms going, but ag education's staying

Lenin Campos grew up nowhere near a farm.

He had never heard of the 4-H Club, let alone belonged to one.

Yet this Glenbard North High School senior spends two hours every school day studying landscape design, irrigation and plant species. Out of class, he mows, weeds and edges more than a dozen lawns in a budding business.

The combination thrusts Campos to the forefront of a resurgence in agriculture education.

High schools statewide increasingly refashion agriculture courses with an eye toward the industry's marshaling financial strength and away from the family farm.

Nearly two-thirds of the 26,329 students enrolled in agriculture courses last year came from suburbs or cities. Just 13 percent have farming backgrounds, according to a study by the Illinois Leadership for Agriculture Education.

"The bulk of these students are not preparing themselves to go back to the farm," said Jay Runner, of the Facilitating Coordination in Agriculture Education project. "The emphasis now is on trying to bring the non-traditional students."

So in an industry awash in jobs -- Illinois businesses connected to crop production, plant sales or landscaping employed about 166,000 people and were valued at $4.7 billion in 2003 -- state educators look to the suburbs and cities to draw more teens to the academic discipline and ultimately, the profession.

Amid collar counties replete with acres of lawns that need tending, landscape design and management tops course lists. Horticulture and food sustainability also are popular picks, experts said.

"We're not doing the large farm animal or crop production," said Jodi Wirt, associate superintendent for instruction in Naperville Unit District 203. "We are looking at ways that students might enter the work force in different areas and with different interests."

Nearly two dozen high school programs across the Chicago area prepare teens for everything from tackling food safety for a big box store to managing plant sales for a greenhouse or schooling a new wave of students in agriculture literacy.

"We need to get to them in elementary school and let them know the milk they have didn't just come from the store or why cars are more efficient because they use ethanol or what farmers do to keep the water supply clean," said James Anderson, an agriculture education professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Illinois this year plans to invest $2.9 million in the effort, as it has for the past two years.

High schools in Chicago and the Northwest and West suburbs received 5.5 percent -- or $56,067 -- of $1 million in agriculture grants parceled out by the Illinois State Board of Education at the start of the school year.

The Illinois Leadership Council of Agriculture Education last month unveiled plans to recruit teachers to fill vacancies that have ranged from three dozen to six dozen annually since 1992.

State lawmakers created the council in 1986 after the farming industry said academic training was needed to ensure a continued source of trained, qualified agriculture workers. Three years later, a project called Facilitating Coordination in Agriculture Education debuted to strengthen programs statewide. Since then, state funding for agriculture education climbed from $48,500 to $2.9 million today.

In an unprecedented move, the group last year hired an expert to spur agriculture programs in Chicago and suburban schools specifically.

"We're just on the cusp of things," said Sarah Hileman, charged with the new role.

Gains are measured in small steps, she said. Area elementary and middle schools routinely recruit Hileman to talk about agriculture careers. But starting programs from scratch takes time. Statewide, seven launched this fall, including two in northern Illinois.

In Naperville, District 203 high schools added an advanced animal biology class, the only new addition in three years. This augments offerings that include landscape science, greenhouse crop production and floral design.

Aurora's Waubonsie Valley High School has a three-year horticulture sequence capped by an internship.

Hampshire High School students can study agriculture mechanics -- how do you repair a tractor? -- or horticulture science, where they learn about plant propagation, greenhouse management and hand tools. The course offerings have been around for more than three decades.

"In Hampshire, there are still farms out there," said Elaine Morton of Dundee Township's Community Unit District 300. "So (the courses) do focus some on equipment repair and those kinds of things, which, in some cases, is still applicable."

In Addison, the Technology Center of DuPage last year revived an agriculture program at the career and technical education campus for high school juniors and seniors in area public schools.

For more than a dozen years, the school's greenhouse sat empty, the classroom building enlisted as storage space. The horticulture program fizzled. For 16 years, nothing replaced it.

The region's booming landscape business changed that.

Repackaged as a landscape design and management program, the course drew 16 students during the inaugural year. Ten teens -- including Glenbard North's Lenin Campos -- currently attend, studying everything from computerized design to plant science and turf grass.

At least half their grade comes down to what instructor Brian Clement calls their employability -- how often they attend class and if they arrive on time and prepared. What Clement expects today, clients will expect tomorrow.

"A lot of people don't think of landscaping as part of agriculture," Clement said. "But it is a huge part of urban agriculture."

Landscape design, installation and maintenance drove agriculture service revenues that totaled $2 million in 2003, according to a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study.

The steady push toward farther-flung suburbs with large yards nudges demand steadily higher.

In addition, many suburban homeowners increasingly invest in landscaping, looking to extend their home's livable space -- and with it, their resale values.

More demand means more jobs.

"The need is just phenomenal," said Jeff Korhan of Plainfield-based Treemendous Landscape Co. "There are so few people that seem to be tuned into this profession. … If there are good people out there, they are not going to be looking long."

Campos is banking on it.

The Glenbard North senior still doesn't belong to the 4-H.

The idea that he represents the new future of agriculture education in Illinois doesn't much faze him.

For Campos, the two hours he spends in class refining the landscape skills he learned at his father's side are an investment in his future. He hopes to broaden his lawn care business to include installation and building.

"I've always like it, just working outside. I don't like the computer too much," Campos shrugs. "But I'm always learning here."