Pierce Bets the Farm : In the face of declining enrollment in agriculture courses and pressure to sell its rich land, a community college considers ways to stick to its roots.

Twice a week the Pierce College farm pickup truck rolls onto the dirt driveway of the Trafficanda Egg Ranch in Canoga Park. At a loading dock, 150 dozen eggs are stacked in cardboard boxes.

Pierce employees carefully load the eggs onto the truck and then return to the Woodland Hills campus, where the eggs go on sale at the school’s farmers market.

For the past year, half of the “farm-fresh eggs” sold at the Pierce market have come from off campus. The few aging hens at Pierce can’t lay enough to keep up with demand.

The reduced egg count is one indication of changing times in the college’s agriculture department, where production of home-grown dairy products seems to be running as low as student interest. From a peak of 2,000 in the 1970s, the number of Los Angeles Pierce College agriculture majors has declined to 370.

Another Direction

Since its founding in 1947 as the Clarence W. Pierce School of Agriculture, the college and agriculture have been closely aligned. But on its 40th anniversary, the school is moving away from its roots, and the future of the agriculture department is uncertain.

Pierce President David Wolf launched an examination of the agriculture curriculum in the spring, after the department appeared on a list of those falling short of enrollment expectations set by the Los Angeles Community College District.

Wolf sought to determine whether his two-year college, in an urban area that is no longer a farming center, needs an agriculture program that operates on 250 acres of valuable land, has the school’s highest annual budget and serves the fewest students.

A report by a committee of administrators and teachers was completed two weeks ago and sent to district Chancellor Leslie Koltai. Its recommendations will not be made public until Koltai and the district Board of Trustees approve the report.

Report is Confidential

Although the president’s report is confidential, Wolf has indicated that some changes will be made.

The college’s options appear to range from the drastic--closing the agriculture program and selling the land--to a gradual shift in emphasis to attract more students to the department.

The probable choice, Wolf said in an interview, is the latter. The college will probably phase out outdated and unpopular courses and build a curriculum that mirrors growing segments of the San Fernando Valley’s agriculture industry--landscaping, nursery management and horse breeding.

“We certainly need to be positioning ourselves to move out into new areas where there is a societal need, where there are jobs and where we are serving the community that we are here to serve,” Wolf said.

“To the degree that we don’t do that, we will deserve the ridicule of the public. We’re not just here to sop up public funds because historically we have done a certain thing.”

There is speculation that the financially troubled community college district might sell some of the Pierce land, 250 acres that West Valley real estate authorities estimate is worth at least several hundred thousand dollars an acre, which would solve the college district’s money problems for years.

Wolf has tried to dispel the rumors and soothe the fears of students and faculty members. Neither he nor any other administrator studying the agriculture department has publicly suggested eliminating any of the department’s seven majors. And if any farmland is sold, Wolf said, he would resign.

Most of Pierce’s 12 agriculture faculty members agree that the curriculum must be overhauled to attract more students. But the question of what should be cut has caused “a considerable amount of bitter in-fighting in the department,” said Lee Shapiro, a dairy-science teacher and an outspoken opponent of drastic changes in the program.

Modifications of the curriculum would not take place until fall, 1988, said Cedric Sampson, a district vice chancellor.

Wolf and Malcolm (Mick) Sears, chairman of the agriculture department, said the program probably will emphasize courses in high demand, such as pre-veterinarian, horse care and breeding, and management of nurseries and flower stores.

“The school will have a new educational look,” Sears said. “Fewer animals, a different emphasis in animal production, crop production and an emphasis on farming as a small business.”

Critics say eliminating courses such as those on large-animal care would cut the heart out of the college’s farm program.

“What I’m against is the cheapening of a Pierce agriculture degree,” Shapiro said. “That’s what could happen if the curriculum was filled with a lot of backyard agriculture classes.”

Pierce is not alone in trying to reshape its agriculture program. Throughout California, colleges are adjusting to lower agriculture enrollment and decreased demand for courses in large-animal production, dairy science, and citrus and orchard production, officials say.

In Ventura County, the community college system closed agriculture programs at two campuses and consolidated courses at the third. At the Ventura campus, which has the only remaining program, the emphasis has shifted from farm operation to nursery management and floristry, which covers floral design and store management.

At Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, lack of student interest has forced the closing of the poultry farm and a change in dairy science from production to processing. The school increased the number of pre-veterinarian and horse-science courses and expanded the horticulture program.

Four Campuses

In the California State University system, only four of 19 campuses--San Luis Obispo, Pomona, Chico and Fresno--offer agriculture degrees. Agriculture enrollment has declined, and there is a movement away from training students to become independent farmers toward courses that focus on the scientific side of farming--biotechnology, genetics and experimental forms of crop cultivation.

Finally, the University of California system is reviewing its agriculture curriculum at three campuses--Berkeley, Riverside and Davis. Agriculture schools at all three have experienced enrollment declines since the mid-1970s.

At UC Davis, home of the state’s most renowned college agriculture program, officials are using an aggressive recruiting campaign that stresses the variety of its offerings, from environmental studies to wine-making.

In Los Angeles County, there are few farms remaining and few jobs on them. Today, the county’s largest agriculture employers are landscape companies and horse breeders, Pierce administrators said.

Enrollment in Pierce’s agriculture courses reflects the demands of the job market. Horticulture and horse science are popular. Courses in cattle, sheep, poultry and swine production are suffering from low enrollment.

Pierce graduates in the veterinarian assistant program usually have no trouble finding jobs at pet hospitals or with veterinarians, school officials said. Horticulture graduates are employed by Valley nursery and landscape companies, or open flower shops.

But the number of agriculture jobs in Los Angeles County has declined 13%, from 12,300 in 1979 to 10,600 last year, state figures show.

There is little demand for college-trained workers on California farms, where more than 90% of the jobs are filled by day laborers.

Contributing to the decrease in Pierce enrollment, officials said, is that fewer area high school students are exposed to agriculture in secondary schools. College counselors report that only about 10% of recent California high school graduates have had any horticulture or agriculture experience.

Only four of the 17 Los Angeles Unified School District high schools in the Valley--where most of Pierce’s agriculture students come from--offer extensive agriculture and horticulture programs. They are Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Polytechnic in Sun Valley and Cleveland in Reseda.

Pierce has the only agriculture program in the nine-campus Los Angeles community college system. It was originally an all-male, two-year agriculture college. In 1951 it began admitting women, and the academic program became more comprehensive.

Roots Evident

Although today’s students are more interested in business and computer science than agriculture, the campus life is rich with references to the school’s agricultural roots. Pierce’s athletic teams are nicknamed the Brahmas, after the world’s oldest domesticated breed of cattle. The school newspaper is the Roundup, and the campus magazine is the Bull.

The agriculture students at Pierce are still dedicated to their academic program.

“OK, maybe the land is worth more than housing herds of cattle, bands of sheep, flocks of poultry and droves of swine. But in the long run, what is more valuable, education or land development?” asked Gretchen R. Steininger, a major in pre-veterinary studies.

The program operates on rolling fields bordered by Victory Boulevard on the north, De Soto Avenue on the west, single-family homes on the south and the main Pierce campus on the east.

About 180 acres are under cultivation. Fruits and vegetables are grown by a private farming company on about 80 acres and are sold at an outdoor stand that is separate from the campus farm store, where eggs and milk are sold. Feed corn used for Pierce herds is grown on another 80 acres. The rest is citrus groves and an arboretum.

An 11-acre “nature canyon” is dotted with plants and vegetation from various ecosystems. This area also acts as the winter haven for flocks of Canada geese. The Pierce farm is home to 40 beef cattle, 45 dairy cows, 30 sheep, 28 horses, 300 chickens and 80 pigs, all raised by students with the help of the faculty and the farm manager.

Pierce administrators consider enrollment in some courses to be at healthy levels. Entry-level animal-science courses average 35 students a class. Advanced horse-science classes average 28 students; ornamental horticulture classes, 25, and floristry, 23.

But classes in agriculture business and advanced beef, swine and sheep production have only nine or 10 students.

Dairy-science courses at Pierce are in low demand. Assistant Dean Frank Baugh said there are few jobs for two-year college graduates in today’s dairy business, where workers need to know more about computers than cows.

Nevertheless, dairy-science instructor Shapiro says his students have not gone wanting for jobs when they graduate. Many have found work as herdsmen in rural areas outside Los Angeles County.

Pierce officials said they have tracked about 50 agriculture graduates who have continued their education at four-year institutions. Most of those students have gone to California State University, Fresno, or California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Many campuses elsewhere, however, do not keep the kinds of records Pierce officials need to follow their graduates’ academic careers.

Good Reputation

Despite erratic enrollments and changing times, Pierce seems well-regarded among agriculture educators.

“They have a good reputation up here,” said Joe Sabol, associate agriculture dean at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. “Pierce students get a very practical education. Our philosophy here is to learn by doing. Pierce kids fit right into our program. They have that background of hands-on experience.”

Pierce’s agriculture department also was reviewed during the 1970s. Then, too, the worries were low enrollment and an outdated curriculum. There were calls for change, but nothing happened. No one wanted to tamper with the school’s chief tradition, Wolf said.

“Another reason is, and I have to be candid, times were good,” he said. “So I guess the attitude was that, even though many aspects of the agriculture program were dated and enrollments were declining, it wasn’t hurting the budget, and no one out in the community was complaining--why worry about it?”

The 1980s have not been so good. Pierce’s overall enrollment declined from 23,721 in 1982 to 18,513 last fall. As enrollment fell, so did state funding.

In today’s cost-conscious atmosphere, Wolf said, it is “very difficult to justify a sort of slapdash and primarily history-driven program” that many believed the Pierce agriculture program had become.

Community supporters, agriculture teachers, students and alumni have promised to oppose drastic changes. Shapiro has lobbied state legislators for an official designation of Pierce’s 250 acres as a state agricultural preserve. That would virtually eliminate the possibility of the land’s being used for anything but farming.

Shapiro admits that the agriculture program will never regain its former glory, and he fears what’s coming.

“My worst-case scenario for the future of the farm would be the continuation of the trend I see the current administration following,” he said. “The large-animal program would be eliminated, the land would be leased or sold to outsiders, and the curriculum would be filled with classes like tropical-fish management.”

PIERCE COLLEGE ENROLLMENT IN AGRICULTURE COURSES

Year No. of Students Total Enrollment 1982 2,473 23,721 1983 1,900 21,260 1984 1,760 19,286 1985 1,793 17,393 1986 1,606 18,513

Source: Pierce College