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Training the future workforce for Kansas starts with investing our time and our funding.

August 6, 2021

4 Min Read
Woman farmer controlling drone in field
LABOR FORCE: If we want our future workers to meet the needs of tomorrow’s food and agricultural sector careers, we need to rethink Career Day.Scharfsinn86/Getty Images

I’ve been sitting in on the virtual sector breakout sessions that the Kansas Department of Agriculture has been hosting in advance of the 2021 Governor’s Ag Summit. One thing has popped up time and again — the need for businesses to have a ready supply of trained labor that is prepped for the demands of tomorrow’s technology.

From health care professionals to equipment operators and everything in between, our state’s social and economic future rests squarely on our ability to train a skilled labor force.

It’s time we rethink Career Day.

Public education

Investing in the education of our young people is really investing in our future as well. Now, I know there are massive arguments surrounding funding our public schools in this state. But this isn’t that column.

Can we at least agree on the principle that investing in educating the home health aides we’ll need for the large population of baby boomers to age gracefully in their rural homes and communities is a good thing? Can we agree it might be good for our farms if the 20-something graduates of the ag programs at the publicly funded community colleges down the road know the very latest in precision ag technology that’s now in our equipment?

We have manufacturing and technology businesses that are looking at our state for their expansions today, but they have valid concerns that we may not have the trained workforce they’ll need for tomorrow.

OK, then. So how do we get there?

Change in thinking

It’s going to take all of us to change our thinking. Yes, we need to make sure our children can read and write and do basic math. But we also need to be thinking about preparing them not just to fill bubbles on a test sheet, but to have a career path as an adult. Whether that path leads them to an office in the city managing the supply chain for a large packing plant, or whether it takes them to a western Kansas dairy doing AI work. And whether the child is from a school district in rural Wichita County, or in urban Wichita, Kan.

We can no longer rely on replacing our skilled labor out here with our own rural children. It’s time we took the message that the food and agriculture sectors have jobs that provide opportunities for all to our urban schools.

Yes, 4-H and FFA do great at providing those opportunities already to their members. I’m talking about an ag equipment engineer mentoring a high school robotics team in Kansas City and promoting the opportunities in artificial intelligent farming of the future. I say put an agronomist in a science class in Lawrence to explain crop breeding methods and chemical pesticides, and how science makes that possible. Bring in a lineman, a home health aide, and a vet tech and show that there’s ways to work in a sector without incurring crippling student loan debt.

Provide material support

Introducing youth to these career paths is the first step. Next, we need to give them the material support to lead them down the paths.

We need to make sure our public institutions have the infrastructure to teach the career paths of the future. In my chat with Kansas State University Dean of Agriculture Ernie Minton, it was brought up that we’re teaching the workers of tomorrow using the infrastructure of yesterday. The K-State dairy farm is a prime example. It uses a design and tools from decades ago that a dairy worker of today wouldn’t even recognize.

Public funding will help, but private industry needs to pony up some dollars as well, to be fair. We can’t expect tomorrow’s workers to be ready to operate the high technology that’s emerging now if we’re still training them on yesterday’s equipment. Providing a chance to learn hands-on is the best way to reach youth.

Let’s talk internships and mentoring programs for youth, too. Summer jobs are some of the best exposure to career paths that we have. But don’t just make it grunt work — take the opportunity to teach and mentor too. Share the steps you took on your own career path. Where did you go for your education, and how did you enroll? What clubs were you involved in, and what connections did you make in your field to help you?

Don’t just assume that young people know these things.

If we, as the rural business community, want to have a skilled labor force in the future, it’s on us to reach out and rethink Career Day today and our participation.   

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