The Defection

Though carefully restrained in tone, the memo to Texas A & M's 800 county agents and staffmen scattered across the state was nevertheless a solemn warning. Its author was 64-year-old D. Willard Williams, the institution's vice chancellor in charge of agriculture and one of the nation's top agricultural experts. "Agriculture," wrote Williams, "faces a drying up of trained leadership at its source. There just simply are not nearly enough young men and women entering the agricultural and home-economics fields." Williams' worry: While the rest of the country harps on its need for young scientists and engineers, who is going to stay down on the farm?

Williams was not alone in asking that question last week. Though no one is in a state of alarm, the drop in agricultural enrollments has become a major concern of many agricultural campuses. At Michigan State University, the number of farm majors has dropped 20% since 1949. To make matters worse, only 11% of those studying agriculture at M.S.U. go into farming. In 1950 the number of students taking engineering at Iowa State College was about the same as those in agriculture. Today the engineering division is twice as large. At Texas A & M the percentage of students in agriculture has dropped from 35% in 1936 to 19%, while agriculture at Kansas State and Louisiana State has been losing ground recently at the rate of 1% a year.

Prowl for Talent. What is behind the defection? One cause, says Williams, is that many states have been suffering from drought. "Any young man who's been out in that for six or seven years is not going to stay in that kind of business." While farm life seems all "drudgery and hardship," industry is offering beginning salaries to college graduates too tempting to refuse. But the most important factor is that few boys and girls realize that agriculture has become a field that needs highly trained technicians.

To stem the tide of dwindling enrollments, campus after campus has launched campaigns to convince young people that the farm is still a land of opportunity. Ohio State University has set up career conferences at high schools across Ohio. "But when we went into the schools," says Assistant Dean John T. Mount of the College of Agriculture, "we found that a lot of people thought agriculture still means plowing the land and milking the cows and little more." The University of Nebraska's College of Agriculture is thinking of sending out a special recruiting exhibit to high schools. Iowa State College has a new scholarship program that is specifically aimed at bright agriculture students. As never before, the nation's agricultural schools are on the prowl for talent.

Bull Market. Indeed, says Dean Arthur D. Weber of Kansas State's School of Agriculture, the whole approach to agricultural education has changed. The old saw that if a boy is going to farm "he doesn't need to go to college" will have to be changed to "he's going to farm, so he has to go to college." Unfortunately, says Franklin Eldridge, associate director of resident instruction at the University of Nebraska, "people have overlooked the fact that agriculture is basically a science." The schools are not concerned with plowhands. They must turn out agronomists, geneticists, animal breeders, plant breeders, cereal chemists, entomologists and botanists. "There is," says Dean Weber, "a bull market for such men." Adds Eldridge: "A few years ago it would have been unheard of for livestock packers to look to a college for cattle buyers. Now they are looking very anxiously. The Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, farm management companies, all want our graduates."

Unless enrollments rise, warns Texas A & M's Williams, the colleges will never be able to supply all the experts needed. "There is," says he, "a danger to the whole country if the downward trend in interest isn't checked. We'll just wake up some day and there will be nobody to hire to run the farms or explore agricultural research."

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