Have you ever considered the effort that goes into preparing your lunch? No, we’re not talking about what happened in the kitchen 20 minutes ago–we mean before that. Before the peppers on your burrito were harvested last spring, an economist had to forecast the quantity of seeds that would be needed to sustain the demand for peppers in Mexican-style restaurants this fall. Ahead of the restaurateur’s decision to serve locally sourced, grass-fed beef in all his entrées, the owner of a family-owned farm hired someone to market and brand that beef to attract retail attention. Before immigrant farm production workers received equitable pay for a hard day’s work, a civil rights attorney with the United States Department of Agriculture studied their complaints and determined if discrimination occurred in the dairy plant that produced your sour cream.
Long before you drank your beer and sighed contentedly, a food scientist calculated the amount of yeast needed for the fermenting process to produce the flavor you’re accustomed to in your favorite brand.
Well, if you hadn’t wondered about that before, I’m sure you hadn’t thought about the myriad jobs involved. The fact is, employment of agricultural and food scientists is expected to increase by 10% from 2010 to 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the USDA expects that some 25,700 jobs will open up annually for management and business representatives in food systems, renewable energy, and the environment between 2010 and 2015.
These are professional positions that cater to scientists, lawyers, and people with MBAs, with starting salaries above $40,000. But there is a shortfall of candidates with skill sets in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to fill these vacancies. On the next few pages you will meet four young professionals who chose not to ignore the industry but leveraged their knowledge of agriculture and its market demands to fit their professional and business goals.
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“When Steve Harvey found out I was a food scientist, it blew his mind,†says chef Judson Todd Allen, the self-described “architect of flavor†who was recently a guest on Harvey’s show. Allen’s company, Healthy Infused Cuisine, specializes in personal, private, and event chef services. “Harvey said, ‘Some of us do that?’ It instantly gave me credibility. Then I was able to back up the title with knowledge. He looked at me differently–as an expert who could pull on the science behind food.â€
Allen’s food science degree from the University of Illinois also gave him an edge when he auditioned for The Next Food Network Star. Celebrity chef Alton Brown, known for his enthusiasm in investigating the science behind food, chose Allen, the only contestant with a degree in food science, to join his team for the Season 8 competition. And though some might think of scientists as stuffy or aloof, Brown complimented Allen on his personable presentation style.
“When I went to college, I went into food science because I knew it would set me apart from my competitors. I knew I wasn’t going to be a traditional chef. My favorite courses were food sensory and analysis and food chemistry,†says Allen, who as a child dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur and television personality like Emeril Lagasse. “Those classes allowed me to really peel back the layers of food and flavor, understand their chemical breakdown, and–from a sensory perspective–train my palate to discern different flavors and their interactions.â€
Allen’s goal is to use his food science background to transform the way people think about healthy food. He’s not the first to take on this task, but because of his personal struggle with weight (he’s lost more than 135 pounds) and eating unhealthily, he hopes to make this message palatable to others as well. Trained at Le Cordon Bleu, Allen has worked at the Ritz in Paris and the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France, the gastronomic capital of the world. He means it when he says, “Healthy doesn’t have to be boring or bland.â€
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Using food science as the vehicle to carry him to food celebrity status wasn’t always Allen’s plan. As a freshman at the Chicago High School of Agricultural Sciences in 1995, Allen resented being associated with what had become known as “the farm school.†But getting a grassroots, science-driven education in high school broadened his perspective. It taught him about the chemical processes that are naturally a part of cooking, baking, and fermenting, and encouraged him to pursue a bachelor’s in the field. While attending the University of Illinois, Judson teamed up with a classmate and developed a lactose-free, soy-based gourmet chocolate. They conducted a sensory analysis panel and even placed second in a national product development competition sponsored by Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences, or MANRRS.
“Food science allowed me to understand food from a scientific perspective,†says Allen, who hopes to see his name and face on grocery store shelves one day. “With that knowledge you can play around with food, and the possibilities are endless.â€
Working in a project manager-business analyst capacity in the Vegetable Global Production area at agricultural product provider Monsanto, Markesha Jones is responsible for reviewing and providing key performance indicators for vegetables using current and historical forecast data, planning tools, and production figures and capacities. She spends about 15% of her time traveling to Monsanto’s production sites, which include greenhouses, production fields, and
production plants. She has also traveled to production areas in Chile, France, and other places, primarily to conduct business analyses to review and improve Monsanto’s global production processes that are being conducted in these locales.Jones’s father used skills he learned as an agronomist in his work in the U.S. Army. Growing up as the daughter of an Army service member, Jones saw agricultural practices in various parts of the world. “My father influenced my sister and me by saying that people are always going to need food, water, clothing, and shelter, which are vital for life,†says Jones. Her interest in agriculture may come naturally: Her family owned tobacco farms in Virginia; they sold winter wheat, soybeans, corn, and hay, and raised some livestock for market; they also owned a forestry business in Georgia.
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When it came time to choose a career path, Jones, who graduated from Florida A&M University with a major in agribusiness and a minor in agricultural economics, followed her father’s advice and took up the family’s line of work. But instead of tilling the soil, she studied international business and earned an MBA from the University of Missouri—St. Louis. On a typical day at work she uses complex math equations and statistics to calculate crop performance and production capacities globally and in the U.S. She develops reports that production coordinators, regional production leads, crop leads, and production research specialists, among others, use to determine production, supply planning, and operation efficiencies. She then analyzes production trends to ensure that Monsanto’s global production areas and processes are functioning efficiently.
Jones credits MANRRS and the professional arm of the Agriculture Future of America, AFA Alliance, with helping her to achieve her goals. She says that organizations like these and others, such as the National FFA Organization (formerly the Future Farmers of America), help people interested in agriculture develop and achieve their goals, and she notes that the AFA Alliance seeks out young professionals in the agriculture industry. Jones is also active in five affinity groups at Monsanto, including AAIM, or African Americans in Monsanto. The company sponsors internships and co-op opportunities f
or students from various universities, including HBCUs. Jones recommends that other companies in agribusiness follow Monsanto’s lead and cultivate diversity programs that will attract employees of diverse backgrounds.“Agriculture is all about supply and demand,†Jones says. “Because our society is affected in some form or another by 65% of agriculture-based products and services, there is always going to be a need or service to be filled in that area. There are so many opportunities out there, and I don’t think people tie the two together or they don’t know about it. Whether or not you have an ag-based degree there are ag opportunities in manufacturing, IT, and legal.â€
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“I love meat, but I also love knowing where my meat comes from,†says Naithan Jones (no relation to Markesha Jones), who grew up in the Kansas City metro area, famed for its steaks and barbecue. Jones is not alone. A growing number of people want their meat raised and produced locally on small farms and ranches, not shipped long distances from mechanized corporate feedlots that finish tens of thousands of livestock at a time.
As the founder of AgLocal, a Web-based marketplace and exchange platform for the buying and selling of pasture-raised and other non-commercially raised meats, Jones wants to change the way people produce and source beef, chicken, and pork. He hopes to empower not only meat eaters, but also restaurant owners with his Twitter-based #EatClear campaign by facilitating a connection between consumers and restaurants.
“What Amazon did for small independent publishers can be applied to agriculture,†says Jones, who hopes to provide equal competition in the marketplace for restaurants, distributors, and non-corporate, non-mechanized farms. “[Amazon] immediately enabled small publishers to access larger markets at scale and have all the tools and resources and supply chain to compete for the same eyeballs as the large publishing houses.â€
It’s not difficult to see the value proposition in his idea. The U.S. beef cattle industry alone had a retail equivalent value of $79 billion in 2011 and comprises more than 900,000 operations with cattle and calves, including beef and dairy cattle.
Local farmers in western Kansas and California have been supportive of AgLocal, but so has Silicon Valley. Jones was selected from hundreds of applicants to participate as one of seven resident entrepreneurs in the second NewMe Accelerator class for minority tech entrepreneurs. He has since raised more than $1 million from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAir Equity Partners, Serious Change, and Artists & Instigators.
Jones, who worked for the Kauffman Foundation structuring the business model for the entrepreneurship education programs used in Silicon Valley, Boston, and Austin, Texas, was inspired by his wife’s aunt, a farmer who has a Ph.D. in range management and agronomy and AgLocal’s first investor. But he laments that rural America has suffered a brain drain. “That can’t continue to happen,†he says. “We need smart people in rural areas supporting rural innovation, folks that don’t mind sacrificing the city lifestyle to do important work.â€
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As an adjudicator in the USDA’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Cinnamon Butler makes sure that USDA loans, programs, and services are provided based on the merits of a business decision and
not on factors that could be discriminatory, such as race, sex, age, or religion. She then writes a decision that determines if damages should be awarded, compliance reviews required, or training in civil rights conducted.Among other things, she evaluates whether discrimination has occurred with USDA-funded rural housing for the elderly or disabled. “Sometimes state, local, and federal monies aren’t geared toward people who need it,†says Butler, who in college became a member of Alpha Zeta, the national scholastic fraternity for agriculture students and professionals.
While Butler was attending the University of Kentucky in 1998, a landmark class action lawsuit known as Pigford v. Glickman was on the verge of being filed against the USDA. It alleged that black farmers had been discriminated against in the allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1993 and 1997.
Butler, who was elected president of the school’s MANRRS chapter, and who won a national MANRRS public speaking contest, gave a speech on the Pigford settlement for a class. The suit hit home with her because she was raised on a 400-acre family farm in western Kentucky in an area called Butlertown–named after her relatives. Some of her relatives joined the lawsuit and eventually received a $50,000 settlement. But Butler knew of families who didn’t. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, the topic set her on the path to champion small farmers and underrepresented agriculture workers.
After graduating with a degree in animal science, she took a job as a plant management trainee at Perdue Farms and supervised approximately 50 people, mostly Latinos and Bosnian refugees who spoke little English.
She developed a rapport with them and they turned to her for solutions to work-related problems. “I thought if I can do that in this capacity, I can do an even better job in a legal capacity,†Butler recalls. Not long afterward, she entered law school. Her last year in law school was paid for by a fellowship from the American Association of University Women, which supported her pursuit of a career in agricultural law, a field typically dominated by men.
Butler worked in the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy, where entrepreneurs and small farmers apply for loans to develop agriculture products. The next summer she served in the Kentucky Department of Agriculture in the legal counsel department. But before acquiring her dream job at the USDA, Butler was advised to get litigation experience in the courtroom. She says her courtroom experience was invaluable, but that her animal science experience is also useful because it helps her to understand the day-to-day operations, yields, and expenses, and the legal implications of running a farm of limited resources.