Six Years Later: Broadening the Landscape of Agricultural STEM Pathways from K-12 to Career

The talent is there, but too many students are still navigating barriers that limit access, exposure, and opportunity long before college begins.

Agriculture faces a critical challenge: while career opportunities continue to expand across food systems, sustainability, technology, policy, education, and entrepreneurship, too many students still lack clear pathways into the field.

Six years later, the mission continues. In June, I helped lead the Bumpers AgFoodLife Camp.

Little did I know how many doors would open when I first set out to reshape, reimagine, and reignite what was possible for our youth. What began as an AgriSTEM initiative aligned with our state’s largest industry has grown into a broader journey, one that now fuels my Ph.D. work examining who is truly being reached in such a vital sector. Along the way, that work has also expanded my commitment to early college access and career awareness, especially for underrepresented, first-generation, and rural students.

Research shows that across Arkansas career and technical education pathways, students from underserved families account for 60.2% of the population.

The talent is there, but the barriers remain.

Across rural and underserved communities, students continue to navigate limited access, uneven exposure, and structural challenges that shape how they see opportunity long before college. That is why I am committed to studying students’ perceptions of access, belonging, and possibility, and to better understanding how identity is shaped early in the college and career journey.

This work is urgent. The evolving demands of the food and agricultural economy will require a highly skilled, adaptable, and diverse STEM workforce prepared to meet the challenges ahead. That means designing stronger precollege on-ramps where the next generation of agricultural leaders can see themselves, experience belonging, and connect with mentors and role models who help make opportunity tangible.

Launching Junior MANRRS chapters and building statewide engagement have been important steps in that work, but the gaps remain. Funding matters. Leadership matters. And reimagining how we frame agricultural careers matters.

This is a true Keep Scaling moment.

With the support of phenomenal leaders, including Deacue Fields, Jacquelyn Wiersma-Mosley, Kanesha Barnes-Adams, and Jill Herrin, as well as a host of institutional collaborators, we are working to broaden the landscape of agricultural STEM pathways from K-12 through career.

This work sits at the intersection of family connection, academic aspiration, and workforce preparation. It is rooted in a clear need: representation across many agricultural pathways remains disproportionately low. At the same time, invaluable agricultural knowledge, cultural traditions, and community-based expertise risk being lost across generations if we fail to build stronger bridges for the students who will carry this work forward.