May 2026
More than 4 in 10 Florida farmers are at least 65 years old.
Collecting Social Security is not the future of Florida farming. We’ve got an aging workforce challenge on our hands.
UF/IFAS can’t make you younger (give us a few more years to work on that with our medical center!). But every day we cultivate the next generation of farmers and other agriculture and natural resources professionals.
It starts long before a worker starts a paid career. For Cayce Sullivan, UF/IFAS first helped connect her to agriculture as a young 4-Her in Gilchrist County. 4-H helped her develop not just confidence with cows but a service ethic that caused her to notice that even prize winners get sick and that there aren’t enough professionals to help when they do. So, she aspires to become a large animal veterinarian.
When the future workforce gets to college age, we can, of course, give them four years of preparation for a career. It goes far beyond classes. I just got a visit from one of our graduating seniors, Emma Putnam.
Emma repeated to me what she told everyone as emcee at our Dinner of Distinction—about how one her earliest memories is of holding baby chicks at a UF/IFAS event.
Emma grew up to be a star UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences student majoring in agricultural education and communication in preparation for a career in public policy. Her experiential education included serving as a CALS ambassador, during which she met numerous industry leaders and grew her perspective on opportunities in agriculture. As a college-age staff member for our summer program for high schoolers, the Florida Youth Institute, she met with leaders from Farm Bureau, the World Food Prize, and agriculture companies. She interned for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, which gave her exposure to industry-specific issues, policies, and leaders who mentored her.
In June, she starts work supporting the legislative efforts across the Southeast United States of the crop inputs company Helena Agri-Enterprises.
UF/IFAS Extension helps deliver the tools and skills the workforce needs if Florida agriculture is to stay profitable. Our North Florida Research and Education Center—Suwannee Valley educates farmers in the 4Rs of nutrient application – right time, right rate, right source and right placement.
NFREC-SV goes well beyond that into the field of innovation and technology adoption. It dispatches two farm crew members to travel to farms in the region to apply nitrogen using the center’s Miller Highboy. It demonstrates the effectiveness of the technology on your farms so that you can determine if an investment pays off in increased yield.
For Wyatt Jackson, it apparently did. A member of the 2024 Suwannee County Farm Bureau Farm Family of the Year, Wyatt is now operating the family’s own Massey Ferguson 530RS self-propelled nitrogen applicator with the help of the Ag Cost Share program at the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD).
It likely wouldn’t have happened if the Jackson family hadn’t participated in numerous on-farm trials, attended field days to better understand best management practices, and to learn about cost-share programs like SRWMD’s.
UF/IFAS also develops the workforce in the field of policy. Your state board secretary, Clay Archey, is an alumnus of our Wedgworth Leadership Institute for Agriculture and Natural Resources. So are numerous other board members, such as Heather Moehling, and staff members such as Curt Williams, your director of government and community affairs. And I recently visited with Jake Fojtik, your assistant director, during a session of the Natural Resources Leadership Institute he was enrolled in as a Class 25 Fellow.
We’ll keep working with you as long as you have the drive to become a more productive and profitable farmer. Workforce development never really stops. The net income of farmers and ranchers and the quality of rural life are at stake.
Working together with Farm Bureau, UF/IFAS is helping prepare the people who are going to feed Florida and the world in the decades to come.
By J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP
J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).