
A lot of America’s farmers today are getting older and retiring. Others are quitting the profession altogether. The question is, who will take their place?
The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture reports that by 2026, a quarter of the American agricultural workforce will be 55 and older, nearing retirement age. Moreover, the NASDA report states that the agricultural and food sectors make up more than 21 million full- and part-time jobs — and that number is increasing.
“But agriculture doesn’t just affect food. It affects water and a lot of other things like animal health and not just plants. So, this is a problem, and there is a real need to increase people’s awareness of these careers and interest in going into them,” says Virginia Davis, the Daniel F. and Josephine Breden Professor in Auburn University’s Department of Chemical Engineering.
In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the employment outlook for both conservation scientists and foresters is expected to grow 5% between 2023 and 2033 while the job outlook for agricultural engineers is expected to rise 8% in the same period.

So, Davis and a team of experts are working to boost middle school teachers’ and students’ awareness about the variety of agriculture-related career paths through a new initiative called Project FARM, which stands for Fostering Agricultural Research and Mentoring.
Project FARM is a three-year inquiry-based program administered by 10 Auburn University faculty members, staff and county extension agents. The Auburn team will collaborate to assist 14 seventh- and eighth-grade science teachers in incorporating agricultural-related activities into their classroom curricula and mentoring students who enter various science fairs.
The idea for Project FARM came following numerous conversations between Davis and several other scientists on how to tie agriculture and its related careers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, she says.
“For a number of years, I had been interested in showing young students how careers in engineering or other STEM disciplines affects societal needs,” Davis says. “STEM isn’t only about sitting behind a computer or working in a plant. STEM, in fact, affects things like our health, our infrastructure, clean water and the need for food.”
And while Alabama seventh and eighth grade science classes currently address topics like water quality, the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle, the classes often lack an agricultural career context to them, she says.
To add the context, Project FARM, a program supported by a $500,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIF) grant, will promote agricultural literacy among middle school students and introduce them to careers in agriculture, forestry and other related fields. In addition, Project FARM leaders say all of the science activities in the program will align with the current state and national science standards.
Project FARM allows school administrators in Pike and Elmore counties to select 14 middle school teachers to participate in the program that starts this summer, Davis says.
The teachers selected for Project FARM will meet with regional extension agents on field trips related to food, water and forestry, then use those experiences to write lesson plans incorporating agriculture with the Alabama Course of Study for Science and the Next Generation Science Standards, she says.
The teachers will then use their new lesson plans to guide their middle school students in inquiry-based learning and independent science and engineering fair projects on topics related to agriculture.
“A lot of studies have shown that inquiry-based learning is more effective,” says Davis. “Inquiry-based learning gets students engaged in asking questions and trying to answer them. It gets them more involved in the learning process and gives them better feelings of self-efficacy and confidence.”
Besides Davis, the other co-principal investigators on Project FARM include Mary Lou Ewald, outreach director at Auburn’s College of Sciences and Mathematics; Becky Barlow, associate dean for extension and assistant director for Agriculture, Forestry & Natural Resource Extension Programs; Jess Gilpin, assistant director of the College of Sciences and Mathematics Outreach; and Eve Brantley, a professor in the College of Agriculture and associate director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University.
During the first year of the grant, Brantley will lead a Project FARM workshop that will focus on water, using a statewide program called Alabama Water Watch.

Alabama Water Watch is a program based at Auburn University that instructs teachers and other everyday citizens about current water issues, watershed stewardship and even the skills needed to collect water samples, test them, interpret data and monitor water quality in their communities.
“Agriculture is dependent on having water at the right time and at the right place,” Brantley says.
“As you work with students, teachers and everyday citizens on getting those data in place, now you can build a database where you can talk about historical trends, and you start bringing in science and math and looking at even history and what may have happened 10 years ago that could have created an impact to this stream, or what happened that caused the stream to bounce back and recover,” she says.
“Alabama Water Watch has a very robust youth component through our 4H Youth Water Watch program, and we’ll work with teachers on some of the existing work that we’ve done with teachers and lesson plans and then build on that to use experiences from the existing Exploring Our Living Streams curriculum to develop formal lesson plans that align with their classroom needs,” Brantley says.
Gaining an in-depth understanding of water resources as it relates to agriculture could result in some students pursuing careers in, for example, the fisheries industry, Brantley says.
In fact, Auburn University is home to the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences.
During Project FARM’s second and third years, the program will focus on forestry and food with hands-on projects and a look at career possibilities such as working for agriculture companies, working in forestry conservation or for businesses that produce pulp, paper and forest products.
Meanwhile, Davis says that after the teacher workshops end, an external evaluator will analyze the teachers’ lesson plans and assess the program’s effectiveness.
“We’ll do assessments based on the workshops, based on teachers’ interest and confidence in teaching agricultural literacy, and their knowledge of the careers, and then we’ll measure students’ growth in their knowledge of agricultural science and careers,” Davis says.
“What we hope to do is reach a large number of teachers,” says Davis. “Once we have these curricula developed, we’re going to disseminate them through what’s called Agriculture in the Classroom.”
Watching as the launch of Project Farm draws near is thrilling, Davis says.
“It’s exciting to be part of this idea that STEM is everywhere and seeing where these programs lead.”
Gail Allyn Short is a Birmingham-based freelance contributor to Business Alabama.
This article appears in the January 2025 issue of Business Alabama.