Current Initiatives

As demand increases for more qualified workers in the agriculture industry, for more civically-engaged citizens, and for more agriculturally literate consumers, so does the opportunity for agricultural education to deliver solutions.

For this reason, Wisconsin agricultural education is constantly trying to improve the quality of our programming as well as the number of students we reach. The following are some of our current efforts to achieve those aims:

1. Comprehensive evaluation of local programs conducted by the ag teacher, a school administrator and a community member. The goal is to identify areas in need of attention and develop an improvement plan.
    
2. Collect important data to be able to accurately share the story of what agricultural education is doing in the state.
    
3. Recruit and retain agriculture teachers. A lack of qualified agricultural education instructors is one of the greatest challenges right now.
    
4. Addition of more urban programs, particularly in Madison and Milwaukee.
    
5. Increase focus on science in agriculture, which is demonstrated by the passage of a state law that allows approved agriculture courses to be counted as science credits.