Students Have a Field Day at Farm

It was career day Tuesday at Faulkner Farm near Santa Paula, and the lessons centered on the importance of Ventura County agriculture and the job opportunities available within the county’s oldest and most prominent industry.

But leave it to the bugs to steal the show.

While nearly 100 high school students learned much about the plight and promise of agriculture, they reveled in details of a clandestine war waged by farmers in which beneficial insects are set loose to search out and destroy crop-munching pests.

“We want to make the connection anyway possible,” said Bruce Freeman, education program coordinator for the UC Hansen Trust. “We want to do whatever we can to show these kids what agriculture is all about.”

The visit was co-sponsored by the trust and the Ventura County superintendent of schools.

It was part of the superintendent’s Future Connections program, launched last school year to expose high school students to career opportunities in everything from health and human services to hospitality and tourism.

The career exploration program in agriculture was the fourth Future Connections session held since September. Students were bused to the 27-acre farm from high schools in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo and Fillmore.

“We wanted to show these students the breadth and depth of agriculture--it’s more than just the rows of crops they see every day,” said John Tarkany of the superintendent of schools office. “And we wanted to show students [interested in farm-related careers] how to get from here to there.”

It is the kind of program especially important to the people who oversee the Hansen Trust, established by Thelma Hansen in 1992 to ensure that farming in Ventura County would continue to hold its own against suburban sprawl.

The trust, administered by the University of California’s agriculture division, is being used to create a learning center at the century-old Faulkner Farm aimed at teaching the public, especially young people, the significance of agriculture and its value to Ventura County.

Toward that end, farmers, entomologists and other agriculture-related professionals were recruited to share their stories Tuesday, telling of careers in everything from plant science to pest detection.

Fourth-generation farmer Edgar Terry, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said he was pleased to see so much interest in the subject.

“I was amazed that anyone in high school was interested in working in agriculture anymore,” Terry told the youngsters during the morning session. “It’s really gratifying.”

Indeed, there are students such as Brian Watson, 16, a junior enrolled in the agriculture program at Camarillo High School, who hopes to train as a crop-duster.

And classmate Emily Padgett, 17, who wants to pursue a career in veterinary medicine.

Then there are students such as Ventura High School sophomore Mercedes Gonzalez, 16, who is enrolled in her school’s floral design class but is unsure whether agriculture is in her future.

“I wanted to learn more about plants, and the hands-on stuff was really fun,” she said, emerging from a session in which she learned about the delicate ecosystem present in a patch of beans, in the shadow of the stately 18-room Queen Anne Victorian mansion that dominates the property.

“I like being outdoors,” she said.

“And I would really like living here.”