West Central Cooperative’s Jefferson location hosted the future of agriculture at its location on Friday, Oct. 17. About 20 members of the local FFA chapter who are beginning an agronomy unit toured the crop protection, crop nutrient and seed facilities at West Central’s largest Greene County location. Bill Taggart, who oversees agronomy operations in Jefferson, led the tour with the help of several agronomy field marketers and applicator operators.
“We allowed the young people to get up inside some of today’s newest high tech agronomy application equipment. They had great questions for the team that serves our customers in their fields every day,” said Taggart who has been with West Central for more than 30 years.
“We believe that spending time with these young people is important,” explained Taggart. “We are trying to attract young people to the field of agriculture in general, but also to recruit some of these young people to our company in the future. We look forward to helping this group of young people in the future as they study agriculture.”
Cortney Schmidt, ag education teacher and FFA advisor at Greene County High School, shared with West Central that her program has grown from 15 students last year to more than 140 this year.
“On the local level, that growth and interest in agriculture and feeding the world is representative of what’s going on industry wide across the globe today,” explained Alicia Clancy, West Central director of communication. “Iowa State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has record enrollment this year; West Central’s international dairy nutrition business is experiencing record demand; and our growers are bringing in what many believe to be a record crop.
“West Central, like others in ag today, needs engineers, scientists, agronomists, applicators, grain elevator technicians, truck drivers, environmental consultants and accountants. These FFA classes are one place where we want to look for our recruits for the future,” said Clancy.
