Careers Beyond the Farm
Careers Beyond The Farm features career paths in agriculture that defy stereotypical routes students and young people may normally consider. Watch interviews with real agricultural workers whose careers embrace the modern and thrive in the ever-changing fields. Careers Beyond The Farm is also available through the PBS App for many streaming devices, like Roku and AppleTV, as well as video.lptv.org.
Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom (MAITC) engages with those in agriculture careers across the state. Last fall, Ann Marie Ward, MAITC Foundation Executive Director and Ann Vote, Assistant Producer Farm Camp Minnesota Ag Careers Video partnered with Lakeland PBS. Together we connected with Minnesotans engaged in various positions in the agriculture industry and captured the career paths, skill sets and many reasons these individuals came to be a part of the diverse landscape of Minnesota agriculture.
About the Ag Career Videos
During a three-part Farm Camp experience, students learn how there are many ways to be involved in agriculture besides being a farmer or even getting your hands dirty. Throughout these career videos, we interviewed individuals across the agriculture industry to help demonstrate this. Engineers, maintenance, processing technicians and many more were all involved helping us capture the variety of careers available in the industry for students.
When I think of a career in agriculture, I would just have thought of farming. I never associated that maybe an industry such as sugar making could actually be considered an ag industry [...] I would say there are tons of opportunities that get overlooked just because agriculture isn’t ‘just’ farming.
Clara Kaufmann, Process Engineer,
American Crystal Company
What I look for is their [job applicant’s] willingness to learn not really their skills but their willingness to overcome challenges and how they might think through the challenges if they are presented with them.
Zachary Deshayis, Maintenance Manager,
RDO/Lamb Weston
A Classroom Resource
These interviews are the beginning of a multi-year partnership with Lakeland PBS (LPBS) to create web-short videos for classroom use, and professional development for educators to cultivate awareness of the many career opportunities in Minnesota Agriculture, helping today's students see themselves a part of agriculture in the future. In addition to these short videos being tied to Farm Camp Minnesota experiences and lessons, a program of MAITC, LPBS will air a 30-minute feature program with additional highlights and interviews to further engage communities, classrooms and individuals in learning about the people that work to provide food, fuel, fiber and natural resources for Minnesota and beyond. These production pieces will be released at the end of June 2024.
