From the CEO
Aging workforce By Deborah M. Hamlin, CAE, FASAE
More and more often I am seeing articles or hearing news stories about the aging workforce in agriculture, whether it be farm owners or crop workers. Irrigation, as a subset of the greater industry, is no different. Irrigation professionals are aging, and we don’t have their qualified replacements. Though the crop worker issue is probably best solved by comprehensive immigration reform, there are some things we can do to help the big picture.
IA’s sister organization, the Irrigation Foundation, exists to promote careers in irrigation. For the last three years, the Foundation has hosted a Faculty Academy dedicated to agricultural irrigation. The goal is to arm instructors from high schools and secondary schools to have more information to teach their students about irrigation. The vision is that students will know more about irrigation when they graduate, so they will be better workers and, in the end, choose irrigation as their career path. The Foundation also hosts an E3 program (exposure, experience and education) through travel grants for both students and faculty to attend irrigation training classes at the Irrigation Show and Education Conference.
New this year, the Foundation has completed its “career pathways” project, where students can now find information about the many possible career opportunities in agricultural irrigation. Over 20 unique job titles are described for opportunities within the entire channel — from the grower/producer to the engineer, dealer and manufacturer. This new information can be found at
www.irrigationcareers.org.
Of course, not all agriculture professionals are aging out. In November, I had the opportunity to meet with Adam Putnam, Florida’s agriculture and consumer services commissioner. Putnam was appointed to that position in 2011 at just 37 years old. Today he is running for governor of the state of Florida. Putnam addressed our 2017 Water Summit in Orlando about Florida’s water issues, and his points rang true with the audience of irrigation professionals. If you are a Florida resident and are not familiar with Putnam, look him up. He’s got my vote!
We look forward to doing more to promote irrigated agriculture and irrigation careers in the coming year.
We welcome your feedback. Please send letters to the editor — or just let us know how we are doing — to Anne Blankenbiller at
anneblankenbiller@irrigation.org. We’d love to hear from you.
The IA welcomed Adam Putnam to the 2017 Irrigation Show. Pictured left to right: Kris Nightengale, CID; Tyler Fields; Deborah Hamlin; Adam Putnam; Michael Pippen, PE; Warren Gorowitz, CLIA; and Kevin Shortel.
6 Irrigation TODAY | January 2018
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