Millions of people are terrified of public speaking, but Johanne Ross is not one of them. While addressing 20 teachers at a professional development workshop held at the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre south of Winnipeg, Ross naturally changed the tenor of her voice to retain the attention of her audience and moved fluidly from segment to segment in her presentation.
As executive director of Agriculture in the Classroom Manitoba, Ross has delivered many sales pitches for her organization, but her enthusiasm brightened the post-lunch atmosphere in the 10 by 15 metre room.
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Ross’s passion for her topic has served her well over the last 13 years because Ag in the Classroom Manitoba has expanded by leaps and bounds during her tenure. It now reaches more than 30,000 students in the province every year.
Ag in the Classroom’s mission is to enhance the awareness of agriculture in Manitoba’s schools so that teachers and students better understand food production, the agricultural industry and career opportunities in the field.
It’s often hard to measure the impact of awareness programming, but based on enrolment at the University of Manitoba, it appears the program is making a difference.
Since 2003, the number of undergraduates in the university’s agricultural diploma and degree programs has doubled, growing from 250 to 500 students.
Other factors have played a role, but this fall Brian Amiro, associate dean of academics for the agriculture department, directly credited Ag in the Classroom for boosting enrolment in the faculty.
“The faculty thinks that Ag in the Classroom has really had a strong role in increasing awareness in young children about where their food comes from,” said Sue Clayton, community liaison co-ordinator for the agriculture faculty.
Trish Jordan, Monsanto Canada’s public affairs director, said Ag in the Classroom is making a difference in Manitoba, thanks to Ross’s exuberant personality.
“If I was going to choose any word to describe Johanne, I would use passionate,” said Jordan, president of Ag in the Classroom Manitoba.
“That doesn’t mean that people before her didn’t have that same capability, but Johanne certainly has a unique ability to communicate about agriculture and help people see what a great place it is to be.”
Sitting at a table inside the Farm and Food Discovery Centre, Ross explained how she wound up working at her current job, even though she didn’t grow up on a farm.
“My dad was with United Grain Growers, so we had agriculture in our home. There were five of us kids in our family, and we all ended up taking our ag degree,” said Ross, who grew up in Brandon and Winnipeg.
However, there was a time when Ross considered a different career path. In Grade 12, she applied for the faculty of education at the U of M, but a visit to an agricultural trade show with her siblings and exposure to the varied opportunities in the field convinced her to apply to the faculty of agriculture.
While at the U of M, Ross met a young farmer from Minnedosa, Man., who would become her husband. The two settled on his farm and Ross began her career in the agricultural industry, working in crop inputs and the feed business before taking time off to start a family. Once her two boys reached school age, Ross wanted to re-enter the workforce and she came across a job ad for Ag in the Classroom.
“It was just me, a one-woman show,” Ross said, recalling how she started with Ag in the Classroom in 2000.
“I now am full time… and I have five full-time staff…. Our budget is probably 10 fold bigger than when I started.”
Only a few months into her new job, Ross had an “aha” moment that changed the direction of the ag awareness organization. Up till then, the program had simply submitted curriculum material to school divisions and teachers in the hope that educators would incorporate the agricultural information into their classrooms.
“You’d send it out, but you weren’t sure if was being used or gathering dust,” she said.
Ross realized she needed to move beyond a passive approach and take the story of agriculture directly to students.
“The message has to be personal. They (students) have to talk to people in the industry, from the farmer to the different (professions),” she said.
Ross came up with a program called Amazing Grains, where students were taken to a farm and shown the steps of growing a plant such as wheat and turning it into flour.
“It was its first of its kind for Manitoba and beyond,” Ross said.
“We were bringing students out into the field to go through these different stations and learn about what agriculture is and how it should matter to them.”
Ross hasn’t looked back since that first foray into outreach. Amazing Grains has evolved into a program called the Amazing Agriculture Adventure, and she also has established several other initiatives, including the Made in Manitoba Breakfast.
Funded with the help of a $250,000 grant from Monsanto, the breakfast program stops at dozens of Manitoba schools every year. Farmers and other volunteers serve the breakfast and students receive a meal while learning a little about the people who produced the bacon and pancakes on their plates.
“Not only do the kids get to eat, which is a winner, but they really make that connection (to the farm),” Ross said.
“And it becomes a pride event for our industry. The volunteers are feeling the pride about going out and telling their story … because the kids are thanking them for producing the food.”
Ag in the Classroom programming also improves awareness about Canada’s ag industry, which has struggled to attract qualified people in recent years.
Clayton said events such as the Made in Manitoba Breakfast make a difference because it’s important to connect with students several times during the kindergarten to Grade 12 period.
“If we can reach students three, four or five times throughout their time in the school system … by the time they are thinking about what to do for a career, agriculture is on their radar.”
She can’t take all the credit, but Ross is proud that agricultural enrollment numbers have rebounded at the U of M.
“Being an Aggie, it broke my heart hearing that the numbers were going down.”
Looking beyond Manitoba, Ross is hopeful that Agriculture in the Classroom will become a national program. At the moment, there is just an association of provincial organizations.
“To be recognized … and get the support of some of those global funders, we need to be national,” Ross said.
Ross also said it’s time to rectify the institutional bias against agriculture in Manitoba.
For instance, agriculture isn’t part of the kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum in the province and there are barriers that prevent university graduates who hold an agricultural degree from going into teaching.
“You can’t even be recognized with your ag degree to go into education (in Manitoba),” she said.
“Until it’s recognized in the academic field and from the government … we’re not in curriculum…. That’s something we need to be talking about with our government people. It needs to be in there.”
