UNH Cooperative Extension Specialist Trent Schriefer participated in the “Generation: Ag Summit” in St. Louis where more than 150 of the nation’s leaders in the field of agriculture gathered last month in St. Louis to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in developing America’s future agricultural industry workforce.

The Generation: Ag Summit, hosted jointly by National 4-H Council, DuPont and Monsanto, brought together top minds in agribusiness and higher education to accelerate partnerships and pose solutions to drive young people to pursue college degrees and professional opportunities in the agricultural sciences.

In response to the nation’s ag workforce development dilemma, 4-H is crafting a new customizable, online learning system called Project Pathways. Created to spark early youth interest in the ag sciences, Project Pathways features a wide variety of hands-on topics and activities from genetic engineering, agro-robotics and sustainable agriculture to product marketing, plant science, animal science and ag communications.

An exciting new part of 4-H’s existing research-based, Ag Science programming, Project Pathways, was developed by the scientists and educators within America’s unique land-grant university system.