SVM_Today's Farm_030624

Illinois is learning to grow

Number of ag teachers and education programs on the rise

By HANNAH SPANGLER FarmWeek

A grant program has helped increase number of agriculture teachers and agriculture education programs in the state.

In 2014, there were 320 agriculture programs with 386 teachers. That number grew to 386 agriculture programs with 547 teachers in the 2023-24 school year, according to data from Facilitating Coordination in Agricultural Education (FCAE).

“To me, it tells a story about being able to reach more students in more places to learn about agriculture,” said Jesse Faber, agriculture teacher and FFA adviser for Pontiac Township High School.

Faber has been teaching agriculture for 18 years and is finishing a doctorate program in ag education. His dissertation focuses on the recruitment and retention of teachers in Illinois. He told FarmWeek, “The number of teachers and programs has been escalating over the past 7 years. Right in the middle of that, the Three Circle FFA and SAE Grant started.”

Through this grant program, which began in 2017, full-time ag teachers can receive pay for 400 hours out-

side of their usual teaching obligations. The teacher’s school district pays 50% using the grant dollars and the other half is often covered by the school district or community partners.

“The most valuable piece is to be able to embed agriculture in a student’s education so we can connect with young people in this industry that I love and help them become more educated consumers,” Faber said. “It is crucial to allow FFA programs to grow because every student can have a place in it. I encourage everyone to support your local agriculture program.”

FCAE state coordinator Jennifer Waters said she contributes the growth in ag programs to the Three Circle Grant and an ag teacher’s ability to fill home economics, industrial arts and science teacher roles.

“We have these teaching vacancies happening, but the grant is what sweetens the pot,” she said. “We can say to the district not only are we going to help you by picking up these classes that you couldn’t find someone for, but we’re also able to give a stipend to help pay this teacher for their extended time.”

Adding ag teachers and giving them compensation for the extra time in their jobs has had an impact on student participation. “Now the teacher is getting paid to do the extra, so they are going to other events and other activities. Student participation is growing because of this,” Waters said.

The Illinois 2023 Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Education Report showed an increase of almost 10,000 students since the implementation of the Three Circle Grant.

“With the increase in agriculture programs offered, there are teaching roles that do not get filled,” Waters said.

“In most cases, we’re able to work with school districts so the next year we can fill the position,” she said. “But I will say the Three Circle Grant has helped with retaining the teachers we have.”

Faber said, “We’re very thankful to FCAE for what they’ve done. They are wonderful researchers who are building bridges and opening up ag programs.”

To fill teaching vacancies, a selection of teachers are coming from the ag industry with non-traditional licenses. FCAE offers teacher training in addition to first-year ag teachers conferences to help these teachers grow their knowledge.

FCAE provides further support to ag teachers through workshops, grant application assistance and overall advocacy. Additionally, FCAE has created a Chicagoland program adviser position to further develop agriculture programs in urban areas.

This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.

TODAYS’ FARM

Dixon High School returns to its roots

A team effort yields results as ag education returns to curriculum — ‘It has been a long time coming’

By JEANNINE OTTO | Shaw Media Agrinews jotto@shawmedia.com

DIXON — It has taken a village, actually a city, and many months, but the effort to bring back agriculture education to Dixon High School is nearing completion.

“It has been a long time coming. You see the surrounding communities and school districts being able to offer ag classes and FFA and it is exciting that we are at this point,” said Aaron Book, a Lee County farmer who serves as the assistant girls basketball coach at DHS.

Aaron Book

Book has led the effort to restore agriculture education to the largest school district in Lee County. Book, a graduate of Amboy High School, said he wanted students in Dixon to have access to the same ag education and FFA experiences that he had in school.

“I go back to my Amboy days and now as an FFA alumnus and the amount of learning and leadership qualities I gained from my FFA experience. I just want these kids to be able to experience that,” he said.

Book started the effort over two years ago with then-DHS principal Mike Grady. Grady, who retired in June 2022, grew up on his father’s farm in rural Amboy.

“He is a farm kid, so I brought the idea to him and he was a supporter of it,” Book said.

Another supporter was Jared Shaner. Shaner taught physical education and was the head football coach at Mount Vernon before being hired as athletic director at DHS in 2015.

“I’ve known him since he came here as athletic director. He came from Mount Vernon and they have a big ag education and FFA program, so he was familiar with the program,” Book said.

Shaner was hired in December 2021 to become the DHS principal upon Grady’s retirement.

“He’s been very supportive of athletics and activities and Dr. Grady passed the project on to him,” Book said.

Another DHS ag connection that has helped Book bring the program to fruition is DHS guidance counselor Amy Ebert.

Ebert’s husband, Justin, is the agriculture instructor at Highland Community College and formerly taught agriculture at Oregon High School.

Margo Empen, Dixon Public Schools superintendent, and Doug Stansford, assistant superintendent,

rounded out the group on the administration side.

“We had multiple meetings with the administration and with the support of the administration. We worked out what the concerns were, what potential problems we might run into. We had a lot of meetings to figure out the best way to do this and we took our time in doing it,” Book said.

From the agriculture education sector, John Heiser, District 1 program adviser for Facilitating Coordination in Agricultural Education, provided assistance and input.

“It’s encouraging when you see the bigger schools like Oregon, Byron, Stillman Valley, Rochelle, have ag programs and now Dixon is set to join them. They see the opportunity and that is what this effort is all about: teaching students to be good consumers, good citizens and showing them that there are good paying jobs in agriculture,” he said.

Heiser said he was impressed at the support that Book had gathered for bringing an ag education curriculum back to DHS, which hasn’t offered agriculture classes since 1986.

“I think it’s really turning into a model. Dixon saw the importance of providing that opportunity to students,” he said.

DIXON cont’d to page 22

Solar farms: Understanding the lay of the land

Feds host listening session to shed light on farmers’ concerns

By TAMMIE SLOUP FarmWeek

Renewable energy projects can pose both opportunity and concern for farmers — just ask Lee County growers.

The county holds the title of the top Illinois county for total acreage of proposed solar projects, among them utility-scale solar project proposals that would remove more than 12,000 acres of prime farmland from production.

regarding the conversion of highly productive farmland,” said Lee County Farm Bureau President Adam Henkel during a January listening session hosted by the USDA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

A pair of USDA programs is investing nearly $11 billion to expand renewable energy systems across rural communities, reflecting the largest investment in electricity in the past century.

Adam Henkel

“Lee County farmers have experience trying to balance the opportunity renewable energy development provides with concerns

DIXON cont’d from page 21

Heiser said the timing of the Dixon efforts worked to the program’s advantage, too. When officials from the Facilitating Coordination in Agricultural Education program meet with community and school groups to talk about starting or restarting an ag program at their high school, a timeline is one of the first topics they discuss.

“We talk about a timeline to post. I think that’s why Dixon had a great opportunity. When you are starting a new program, we tend to advise them that you post the position in the fall of the year before the program will start. You interview around December and January. Most schools around here do scheduling in February and March. So, you can have that new teacher come in and introduce themselves to the students,” Heiser said.

“A lot of students choose their classes on their comfort with and being able to relate to the teacher. So, you want to build that relationship and respect level. That is the key, you get your teacher hired and then you start signing students up for classes.”

Book also has cultivated connections outside of the school to generate interest in the ag program and support

The virtual listening session — one in a series of meetings with stakeholders — brought together farmers from across the country to discuss the benefits and challenges of siting clean energy installations (such as solar and wind) on farm land. Farmers shared a range of concerns during the session, including noise and strenuous dealings with project developers.

SOLAR cont’d to page 23

for a future FFA chapter.

“About a year ago, I started an ag, FFA and alumni support group. It’s about 10 to 12 people, supporters of the program from the community. They are not necessarily directly involved in agriculture, but members of the community who wanted to get on board and who I knew would support an ag program at Dixon,” Book said.

“We had a kickoff and introduction meeting to get students and parents interested and excited. The ag club will flow right to FFA,” Book said.

For Heiser, the effort to bring agriculture education back to DHS and the support that Book has had, from Dixon schools administration and from the local community, serves as an example of how a community can support agriculture education in schools.

“There are so many opportunities for students and we have to provide that for them and meet those local needs. When schools start this process, they see that need and they see all the groups who are invested and want to see this succeed,” Heiser said.

This article originally appeared in Shaw Media’s Illinois Agrinews. Go toagrinews-pubs.com/ for more farm news.

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TODAYS’ FARM

SOLAR cont’d from page 22

Henkel noted that Illinois Farm Bureau policy supports renewable energy development, both wind and solar, as a part of the overall energy portfolio. However, IFB policy also supports efforts to locate solar energy projects on marginal or underused lands rather than highly productive farmland to help with preservation of farmland.

“This revenue can help farmers stabilize their income and make additional investments in their farms. However, removing a large acreage of farmland from our county also creates challenges,” he said. “It reduces opportunities for farmers ... who may be renting farmland but who simply cannot pay the higher lease payments that renewable energy developers are offering. This could reduce opportunities for young and beginning farmers to start or grow their farms.”

Removing farmland from production may also reduce local economic activity from input purchases, such as supplies and services used by local farmers. And improperly designed and constructed renewable energy projects may also impact the productive capability of neighboring farms, he said.

Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins echoed those concerns, adding farmers are impacted more than any other group when it comes to siting clean energy projects.

Andy Berke, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service, Rural Development, told participants the USDA wants to ensure the transition to clean energy

is done “the right way,” with an eye on protecting farms from going out of business.

He pointed out that since 1981, the U.S. has lost 141 million acres of farmland and 437,000 farms, and Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is adamant that the USDA help “stop this slide.”

By gathering input during the listening sessions

like the one in January, Berke said the USDA will use the feedback to help local decision-makers make the right choices for their communities and help farmers in making decisions.

“We want to give rural communities — especially our farming communities — the best tools to navigate this transition to cleaner energy,” said Becca Jones-Albertus, acting deputy assistant secretary for renewable energy, DOE.

IFB will provide additional written comments about how the USDA and DOE can assist agricultural communities, including the following points:

• Additional research or information on the impact of surface and subsurface drainage of renewable energy projects and proper mitigation of the impacts through project design or management.

• Information on the impact renewable energy projects, especially solar farms, have on the longterm productive capability or carbon storage capacity of soils.

• Additional information and research into the potential for agrivoltaics in making decisions about continued farming within the footprint of solar projects.

• The USDA or DOE should prioritize projects that are located on marginal or underused lands.

• All USDA or DOE-funded projects should be required to comply with Agricultural Impact Mitigation Agreements at a minimum and outline how the productive capability of impacted lands will be restored.

For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.

TODAYS’ FARM

The future of biofuels is up in the air

Sustainable aircraft fuel has barely reached the starting line yet, but it could be poised to take off

By TAMMIE SLOUP FarmWeek

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) may be a technology in its infancy, but big market potential exists for “biofuels in the sky.”

“This is the place I think strategically to focus on. ... We have hardly even gotten to the starting line,” said Scott Irwin, a University of Illinois professor who specializes in biofuels markets and policy.

Production of a mere 1.9 million gallons of SAF in 2016 increased to 15.8 million gallons in 2022, and U.S. airlines have committed to using 3 billion gallons of SAF by 2030, about 10% of their total fuel consumption.

“I agree with my friends in the corn and the soybean industry pushing sustainable aviation fuel and policy,” Irwin said during a Farm Assets Conference last month in Champaign. “This is the future, I believe, with the threat from electrical vehicles to gasoline demand in the long run. I really believe this is the future direction that policy should go; this is the place where demand for liquid fuel is going to be the firmest in the long run.”

Irwin projects the ag market won’t see a large impact for at least five to 10 years, “and that all depends on a lot of different factors.”

The good news for farmers is the Biden administration last month issued a long-awaited framework for awarding tax incentives around SAF, one that incorporates an updated model of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation model.

The model is backed by the agriculture, biofuels and aviation industries.

However, updates required for agricultural commodities to qualify as SAF feedstocks under that model won’t be released until March 1.

“Numerous fuels will qualify for the credit, including valid biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuels, cellulosic biofuel, or cellulosic diesel,” the Treasury Department said in a news release.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said the announcement is the next step in making the 36-billion-gallon industry even more possible.

Renewable diesel and biodiesel

Irwin said critics have labeled him “ridiculously bearish” on the renewable diesel outlook, but he believes SAF is the

true future for the sector.

Through 2020, production of renewable diesel was relatively small — under a billion gallons per year in a diesel market of 55 billion gallons. Now, renewable diesel plants are being built at a rapid pace.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule in June 2023 establishing a mandate for 4-4.5 billion gallons of renewable diesel and biodiesel by 2025. The U.S. biofuel industry has announced plans for 6 billion gallons of capacity by 2025 and 7.4 billion gallons in following years.

“We’re in the process of a substantial increase of soybean crushing capacity in the next four years,” Irwin said. “If all of the expansions and new plants get built in the next four years, we’re scheduled to increase soybean crush capacity by about a third in the U.S.”

One of the most discussed and debated aspects of the renewable diesel boom is its impact on feedstock markets, such as soybean oil.

“There is a huge change in market dynamics,” Irwin said.

Soybean meal has always dominated the value of a bushel of soybeans, but now with renewable diesel taking off, soybean oil prices have exploded. In 2021 and 2022, half the value came from oil. And while that trend has since backed off, it remains high, Irwin said.

“Of course, not all of the increase in the price of soybeans was due to the renewable diesel boom’s impact on soybean oil prices,” Irwin said. “But it definitely was part of the wind behind the sails since 2021. So this has been big and it’s been economically important, right down to the producer level.”

Renewable diesel is expensive to make, as is building a crude oil refining facility. So why the boom? Irwin dubbed the renewable diesel market a “policy market.”

“It’s not a popular characterization, but it is the economic truth,” he said.

The Renewable Fuel Standard minimum volume standards are the most important foundation, but other policies and credits also are at play, including the U.S. Blenders Tax Credit, state FAME biodiesel blend mandates (Illinois mandates state vehicles that are diesel must use biodiesel blends), and state low-carbon fuel standard credits.

This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.

This is the future, I believe, with the threat from electrical vehicles to gasoline demand in the long run. I really believe this is the future direction that policy should go; this is the place where demand for liquid fuel is going to be the firmest in the long run.”

Scott Irwin, UI professor specializing in biofuels markets and policy

Sauk