University Programs Raise Crop of New Farmers.

UNIVERSITY of Vermont ; UNIVERSITY of California, Santa Cruz ; MICHIGAN State University

DALOZ, Susie Walsh; BIERNBAUM, John

The article presents a profile of several university programs aimed at training and educating farmers through a combination of hands-on experience and classroom instruction. The programs, housed at schools including the University of Vermont, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Michigan State University, focus their curriculum on topics such as organic food cultivation, sustainable agricultural practices, and the science of horticulture and follow a model wherein students actively participate as farmers throughout the semester. It also explains why students are unable to use federal student aid to pay for the programs and provides comments from Vermont program director Susie Walsh Daloz, student Chaya Lipkind, and horticulture professor John Biernbaum.