An Illinois community college has launched two new initiatives to provide training for those that want to help meet the demand for local food, manage you-pick, you-cut, you-enjoy farm experiences, along with helping create and fill job opportunities that exist in agriculture.
“We have a close proximity to Chicago,” says Sheri Doyel, director of the programs launched in recent years at McHenry County College (MCC). “We feel like we will be educating people in a realistic way.”
First, the community college – located between the county’s largest city, Crystal Lake, and its county seat of Woodstock – created a Center for Agrarian Learning to serve as a resource hub to connect existing and prospective farmers with what it calls “food economy leaders.” Since its start in early 2020, the center has held seminars on topics such as “A Toolkit for Women Farmers,” “Farm Law,” and “Regenerative Agriculture: A Profitable Journey.”
“We’re bringing farmers in to do a lot of the education,” Doyel says. “Connecting with a network of farmers, being able to ask directly from farmers is a really powerful way to learn.”
Second, MCC also created a new associate’s degree in entrepreneurial agriculture that offers hands-on experience and business skills training for students that want to be part of agriculture in and around a metropolitan area of over 9 million. It suggests full-time students take courses that include plant science, business, marketing and participate in an agricultural internship.
“It’s very unique because we’ve combined foundational business classes with foundational food production,” Doyel says. “Those people will come out of that program possibly poised to launch a farm business, especially if they have maturity on their side, so they have some life experience. If they don’t, it’s likely that they’ll be a good candidate for a management position on a diversified vegetable farm, or they could become a produce buyer for a grocery store.”
Doyel notes students interested in food and farming careers may likely incur significantly less debt starting at the community college level. Plus, in the case of the MCC Entrepreneurial Agriculture degree program, there are scholarship funds available.
Hear MCC’s Sheri Doyel and from some of the students that have enrolled in the program in this episode of the Partners podcast.
