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Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt, with me, Mike Howell, an economics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, use, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:38)
Hello everyone. Welcome back to The Dirt. If you’ve been listening along this season, you realise that I had made a trip to North Dakota a couple of weeks ago, did a couple of podcasts up there, and got to visit several different events while I was in North Dakota. Part of the things that happened when I was in North Dakota is I ran into an old friend, Dr. Megan Hoffman. We got to have dinner together one night and catch up on some things. Megan, if you will introduce yourself, tell our listeners a little bit about you and what you do.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (01:04):
Hey, Mike. Sure was fun catching up with you and it was a great time just to hang out. I’m in North Dakota now at North Dakota State University. I’m an associate professor here, and also a 4-H youth development specialist and I’ve been here for about seven years. Came to Fargo in 2016, but previous to that, when we worked together, I’m a 4-H agent in South Mississippi where I’m from, and I was an agent in Pearl River County. Worked there for a little over eight years and then decided to take the leap, went to Oklahoma State University and got my PhD in ag education and then landed here in Fargo, North Dakota and been working with the state 4-H programme ever since then.
Mike Howell (01:47):
Okay. Megan, that’s what we wanted to talk about today, was the 4-H programme. I haven’t talked a lot about it on the programme. Maybe in one of the first episodes I mentioned that I was active in 4-H. During my early childhood all the way through the time I graduated high school, I was involved in all kinds of projects in 4-H. We showed livestock, cattle, sheep, hogs, even went to the horse show a time or two, but we did things like land judging and horticulture judging, as well as citizenship and leadership events, did a lot of public speaking. And anything that was going on, we tried to participate in it. And while you were here in South Mississippi, I know you encouraged a lot of young people to get involved in 4-H and do that kind of stuff as well, and I’m sure you’re still doing that in North Dakota. And Dr. Hoffman brought a 4-H member with her here today. We have Ms. Kelsey Johnson. Kelsey, welcome to The Dirt.
Kelsey Johnson (02:37):
Thanks for having me today.
Mike Howell (02:39):
Kelsey, if you would, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you’re from.
Kelsey Johnson (02:43):
I’m from Kensal, North Dakota. I’m going to be a sophomore at Midkota High School. I play basketball, volleyball, track. I do theatre and speech and FFA and 4-H.
Mike Howell (02:57):
Sounds like you’re never at a lack of anything to do. Always busy doing something. Megan [inaudible 00:03:04], let’s start off a little bit and talk about what 4-H is. Tell us a little bit about the 4-H programme.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (03:09):
Right, Mike. So I was never in 4-H growing up, so my first introduction to 4-H was actually when I did my internship to get my bachelor’s degree at Mississippi State University. So I’m a late introduction to 4-H, so I didn’t have the privilege of being in 4-H like you were growing up, so I’m always a little jealous of all you people that got to do it growing up, but I feel like I’ve made up for lost time since then. 4-H is basically the youth development programme of the Extension service. Extension is nationwide. Every single state has a land grant university, and with that land grant university we have Extension. Extension is getting knowledge out to people through all the state, all the counties, and 4-H is the youth development portion of that. We just focus on positive youth development through 4-H and all the projects that you mentioned, Mike, [inaudible 00:03:56] land judging, livestock, there’s science projects. Anything you can pretty much think of, we have a project for you in 4-H.
(04:03)
There’s never a lack of anything to do. We just use those projects in 4-H to really teach important life skills to youth that are going to make them good citizens and contributing to our communities later on in life. So it’s all about learning leadership, life skills, anything like that that will help them be a better person. And I like to tell people that 4-H is different than all other youth organisations, because a lot of other youth organisations, let’s say basketball or football or karate or swimming, they invite their youth based on those particular projects, that one thing they do, but in 4-H, we invite youth just to be a part of our programme. There’s lots of different projects that they can be involved in. No matter what there is, there’s a project for those youths. So I like to tell people that we’re different than the other youth development programmes, so we’re kind of a standout like that.
Mike Howell (04:48):
Kelsey, Dr. Hoffman mentioned a bunch of different programmes that young people can be involved in. Why don’t you take a few minutes and talk about some of the projects that you’re involved in?
Kelsey Johnson (04:58):
I do horticulture. I bring potted plants and things with succulents. And I brought an herb garden one time. I brought sewing. I made a pillow case, a zipper pouch, a lunchbox. I personally like bringing baking the best, so pies and breads and cakes. I did service learning, so I brought a project about 5Ks for awareness of breast cancer, and I brought things in visual arts. I brought a painting and pictures and my scrapbook. My scrapbooks, I brought one every year of 4-H for each of my years of sports I’m in. Each grade, there’s one for.
Mike Howell (05:46):
Dr. Hoffman, we know that 4-H has been around for a long time. Tell us a little bit about the history of 4-H and when it was founded.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (05:53):
Well, 4-H has a founding data of 1902, so it’s been around over a hundred years 4-H just got started back when the whole concept of Extension got started, whenever there was the concept of wanting to get information that was researched and found at the land grant universities out to people in the counties. Back then there wasn’t easy transportation. We didn’t have the internet. There wasn’t easy ways to connect to the universities, so they had to figure out ways to actually get this information to people out across the state, and we weren’t connected like we are now. The Extension started back before, in the late 1800s, with demonstration trains, getting the information out that way, fairs, and that’s the way people got knowledge, the way … sometimes adults are kind of hard to get them to try new things. One of the ways they got adults to try new things was through the youth. And they brought youth in and they started out with corn clubs and tomato clubs for the girls and for the boys in the early 1900s.
(06:45)
And those clubs were kind of a ways to get to the adults to teach them new concepts of growing things and agriculture, new ways of doing things, maybe in the kitchen, preservation for food. So these corn clubs and these tomato clubs just evolved into what we know today as the 4-H clubs and the 4-H programme that we know is nationwide now. That’s how it got started and now it’s just evolved. It started out just agriculture, or come to the county fair, or different things like that, but now it’s way more than just agriculture or teaching you how to do food preservation. It’s science, technology, like Kelsey mentioned, she mentioned about clothing and she also mentioned about horticulture. So pretty much it’s anything now, and we just use those projects to teach life skills to youth.
Mike Howell (07:29):
And that’s the main thing that I wanted to bring out today. Everybody knows about going to the county fair and seeing the livestock shows. And a lot of people think that that’s all there is to 4-H, but there’s so much more that young people can do in 4-H. And everybody seems to think that it’s all about winning that contest and that’s what everybody’s trying to do, but it goes so much more than that. I don’t tend to think of it as winning a contest, as much as it is using those animals or using that project to develop the youth. They can learn so many life lessons that’s going to stay with them the rest of their life.
(08:01)
I know I had quite a lot of opportunities and I didn’t really want to get up and do that first visual presentation that I was asked to do, but seems like that’s kind of paying off these days. I do more presentations than I want to do sometimes, and it all got started through 4-H. Kelsey, I understand that you recently participated in the land judging contest. That’s something that I’ve had a good bit of dealings with over the years. If you will, tell our listeners a little bit about the land judging contest and what you have to do in land judging.
Kelsey Johnson (08:28):
When lands judging, you judge the land. You find the different textures of the soil to figure out what type it is and you figure out permeability and the slope of the land. In 2021, as a junior, I got first place in the state competition, and then again this year I got first place in the senior division, but I was still a junior age so they moved me up and I scored a crazy score, almost perfect. And it really impressed all of my coaches, I guess. He said of all his years of coaching land judging, he’s never seen a score like that. Then we got to go to Oklahoma. And in Oklahoma we judged, but it started raining, so after one site we had to go back to the car and wait and we couldn’t talk because we already judged a thing. And they started telling us stories about how one year when they came down here for a judging they were actually on native land and people came and kicked them off during the competition. It was really fun to do that and it’s taught me to practise hard.
Mike Howell (09:46):
Kelsey, it sounds like you had a great time and really learned a lot doing the land judging contest. I went out there probably seven or eight times to the national land judging contest. And you never know what that weather’s going to do. I appreciate you talking about the rain. Dr. Hoffman and I were there with a group of 4-H’ers one year and there were tornadoes touching down all around us and we didn’t know if we were going to get the contest in or not, but we told the kids if a tornado blew them away, the first one back to the hole was going to do the best in the contest, get back as quick as you could.
(10:16)
So all of that is important information that people working with land, whether they’re in production agriculture, or somebody that wants to build a house, it’s something that somebody needs to know before they buy a piece of property. A lot of good information you can pick up on there. Dr. Hoffman, we know that 4-H is a youth organisation. How old does somebody have to be before they can join in 4-H and can they be in 4-H forever? I’m sure they can age out.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (10:39):
We have what we call the Cloverbud programme for our youth that are ages five to seven. It’s a non-competitive programme, because we know in youth development that that age is not really ready to compete, but it’s a good time to get them involved and kind of teach them about what’s going on in 4-H. And they’re just not quite ready to do the whole competition, but we award them with ribbons and prizes and things for what they do do, whatever contest it is. Then when they turn eight years old, they can enter the competitive programme for 4-H and they can go to contests and compete and do pretty much everything. So from 8-18 is our 4-H age that we are open to for youth.
(11:16)
But then kind of a cool thing here we have in North Dakota is you can even stay in involved in 4-H a little longer because our ambassador programme runs from age 16-22, so those youth are able to go across the state and help out with different projects. If you need help with your achievement days or your fairs or contests, those youth are able to help out with that. And they are youth that are selected through a selection process and they are from counties all across the state. So that’s a good opportunity to stay involved even past age 18 in kind of a different more volunteer type role.
Mike Howell (11:48):
I know some states have collegiate 4-H programmes and different activities depending on what state you’re in, but there’s always a way that somebody can help out. Another way, I know 4-H is always looking for volunteers. Even if there isn’t something for the collegiate area, they could always sign up as a volunteer and help out that way. Megan, talk a little bit about 4-H volunteers and the importance of volunteers to the organisation.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (12:11):
We know that with positive youth development, it always starts with a caring adult. We have to build our foundation with 4-H with a caring adult. We need caring adults to take care of teaching our youth these programmes. Our volunteers throughout the state, they all have different talents and different expertises. These volunteers can actually share their knowledge and really teach these youth different projects or different skills that they are talented in as well. And the more volunteers we have, they can reach a total different audience than just what the agent can in the county. So it’s important to have a diverse group of volunteers throughout your county, throughout your state so you can just keep reaching more and more youth, because 4-H would not be able to do all that it does if it didn’t have our volunteers.
(12:51)
And like I said, a lot of youth … 4-H is all about belonging. That’s one of our essential elements with 4-H and positive development. So youth really want to have a place that they belong. Research says that’s what’s very important to keep youth involved in pretty much anything, is that sense of belonging. And these caring adults actually help that happen and make sure youth feel that they belong. If we start with a good foundation with these caring adults and making sure they belong, then I think that you’re going to have a positive youth development programme and have success for 4-H.
Mike Howell (13:18):
Kelsey, how would you convince one of your friends at school that 4-H is a great organisation and convince them that they need to join 4-H as well?
Kelsey Johnson (13:26):
4-H is a lot of fun and there’s tonnes of opportunities. I’ve participated in 4-H archery tournaments. I’ve gone to project exploration days. My brother likes to bring crops, and my younger brother even got to bring a poster about dinosaurs. My sister wants to bring a rabbit next year. My cousins bring pigs and goats, cows, and there’s just tonnes of things you can do in 4-H.
Mike Howell (13:57):
So Dr. Hoffman, how can a young person join 4-H? If they happen to hear us today and decide that they want to give it a trial, what can somebody do to get signed up and get active in 4-H?
Dr. Megan Hoffman (14:06):
I would say find your county Extension office, as we mentioned earlier, that every single county has an Extension presence. I’d say find where that office is. A lot of times they’re located in the county courthouse. Wander in there and ask where the Extension office is and they will get you enrolled right away. They will probably even ask if you want to enrol as a volunteer leader.
Mike Howell (14:23):
Megan, is there a website that somebody can go to find out more information, find out more about the projects and how they can become a member or a volunteer?
Dr. Megan Hoffman (14:31):
For any state you’re in, you can just Google usually … for here you would do NDSU 4-H and it would come up and you could find the county that you’re located in and then your agents would pop up there for what county you’re in and then that would show you where they’re located and their phone number and their email address. Any state, just put that state and then 4-H and you’re probably going to find the location of the Extension office and a list of different people that work in that office. One of them would be responsible for 4-H.
Mike Howell (15:00):
Dr. Hoffman, any closing comments today? Anything you want listeners to take home today?
Dr. Megan Hoffman (15:06):
I would say don’t miss out now. If you’re not involved in 4-H, get involved in 4-H. If you don’t think there’s a project for you, there is. There’s a way for everybody to be involved, from volunteer leaders to teens helping out, from youth getting involved. I think 4-H is very important. We help youth find their spark, and their spark is just what really excites them and really get them motivated. And their spark could be the project that they want to pursue, and then that project could also actually turn into careers. So a lot of things that we do in 4-H can lead to workforce development and career readiness skills. And those are all really important for our young people, but I think that 4-H is just a good programme to teach a lot of life skills.
(15:44)
If you just get past just thinking that it’s just all about having cows or cooking and just looking at it as a positive youth development programme for youth today, then I think that would be very successful. I would say just remember that 4-H’S foundation, even though it’s set in agriculture, that we just do positive youth development and that it’s supporting that these youth have a sense of belonging and a caring adult in their lives.
Mike Howell (16:08):
Megan, you mentioned again that it’s more than just the livestock. When I was in North Dakota a few weeks ago, one of the presentations I went to, they were talking about using robots to remove the weeds in crop production. And that’s technology of the future. They’re working with some of that now. It’s not quite ready to go to the field on a large scale, but I know robotics is a big project in 4-H and young people learning how to build robots. And that’d be a great way to put those two together. Young people learning robotics and learning how to use these robots in agriculture.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (16:39):
We actually have an engineering design contest here at our state fair that’s coming up at the end of July. Our science specialist here, Dr. Lindsay Laker, she put together a contest, engineering design, where the youth are given a simple task, like brushing your teeth or filling a cup of water, and they have to design a simple machine to actually accomplish that task. So it involves critical thinking skills, thinking outside the box, putting things together. If you think a little further, it involves teamwork, public speaking, and communication. It really gets those youth to really work together and then that’s an important skill they’re going to take with them when they enter the workforce.
Mike Howell (17:11):
That’s the whole goal of the 4-H project, is to make better adults from these young people. Well listeners, if you’ve been tuning in, you know it’s time that now that we start our second segment of the programme and we talk about somebody famous in agriculture.
(17:26)
Today, since we’re focusing on 4-H and the 4-H programme, I thought it was only appropriate that we talk about Mr. A.B. Graham. He’s the one that’s given credit for launching the 4-H programme back in 1902. Mr. Graham was a school teacher in Ohio and he got together a group of young people and formed a corn club and a tomato club, and that was the beginnings of the 4-H programme. And you heard a little bit more about that today. Mr. Graham also was a founding member of what is known as the Association of Communication Excellence. That’s an international professional group for land grant communicators. Mr. Graham spent his life involved in teaching people and had a special desire to teach young people. Some of his earliest accomplishments, he attended the National Norman University in Lebanon, Ohio. After that, he returned to Champaign County in Ohio, where he began his teaching career. In 1885, he received his teaching certificate from Miami County. And in 1902, we’ve already mentioned that he developed the 4-H programme.
(18:28)
In 1905, Mr. Graham was appointed as superintendent of the agriculture Extension at the Ohio State University, and he was the first superintendent there. In 1914, Mr. Graham left Ohio State University to take charge of extension work in New York at the State School of Agriculture. Later that same year, we’ve already talked about the Smith-Lever Act in a previous episode, but that was part of this project as well. And then in 1915, Graham moved to Washington, DC and served as head of the agriculture specialists with the Federal Extension Service until he retired. In getting ready for this programme today I got to thinking about the famous agronomy people or famous agriculture people. And just because somebody is famous and reached out to a lot of people, some people can change just one person’s life and make a big difference on one person and we may never know about them. I wanted to give a chance today to talk about somebody that maybe not everybody in the world has heard of before.
(19:26)
Kelsey, I know you’ve done quite a lot in 4-H. Is there somebody that’s made a difference in your life, somebody that’s been a great mentor to you and taught you a lot of things?
Kelsey Johnson (19:37):
My grandma. My mom used to be in 4-H, so she’s helped with 4-H for a lot of years and she just helps with projects to get ready and she’s very supportive of all of us, because all of her 14 grandchildren are involved in 4-H.
Mike Howell (19:53):
That’s great. There’s nothing like family pitching in together and teaching these younger people how things should work. Dr. Hoffman, what about you? Is there anybody that’s been a real influence in your life?
Dr. Megan Hoffman (20:03):
I’d like to talk about two different people. One person that really kind of steered me towards 4-H is Beth Randall. She was the 4-H youth agent in Lauderdale County in Mississippi, that’s in the county that I grew up in, and she’s the one that I interned with in the summer of 2002. Like I mentioned earlier, I had to do an internship to complete my bachelor’s degree at Mississippi State University in human development and family science, but interned for a summer and I still was not quite sure what career pathway I wanted to pursue. And I never would’ve really ever thought about 4-H unless I had interned with her, since I had never been in 4-H as a youth. After that summer, I knew what I wanted to do, and then I went back to school and worked on my master’s degree in agricultural education, and then I took a job as a 4-H youth agent in Pearl River County, Mississippi and stayed there a little over eight years.
(20:52)
She really helped steer my life and helped me determine what career path I wanted to pursue. If it was not for her, I would not have known about 4-H. So I’m really thankful to her for helping me figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I’ve really enjoyed it ever since. As I mentioned earlier, every person has to find their spark. We talk about finding your spark in 4-H. She helped me find my spark and what I wanted to do. And I would say the other person who influenced me a lot was Dr. Jackie Deeds. And she was actually my sorority advisor when I was in college. She was our advisor for Alpha Gamma Delta, where I served as secretary there and president, and then afterwards she let me work for her when I was pursuing my master’s degree. I taught technical writing for her at Mississippi State University when I was getting my master’s.
(21:40)
And she always challenged me to do one more thing or try one more thing harder or keep going. She kept pushing me. I just remember Dr. Jackie Deeds, she always told me, “Get out there and work a little while and then go back and get your PhD.” Well, that always stuck in the back of my mind. I always had the desire that I was going to go back and get my PhD, but one thing that she taught me was get out there and work a little while. And nothing can ever take the place of true work experience. I feel like working for over eight years as a 4-H youth agent in Pearl River County, Mississippi shaped me to who I am today. And then I went back, and like she said, I got my PhD at Oklahoma State University. Then I was able to apply for the position I am now, but I do like to tell people that getting my PhD allowed me to apply for the job, but my experience got me the job.
(22:31)
So I’m really thankful to Dr. Jackie Deeds for challenging me that way, because if it wasn’t for her, I may not have gone back to pursue my PhD and really get out there and do it. One thing about her I really think is amazing is she was the first woman ag teacher at a high school in Oregon, because that’s where she’s from. She was pretty much a trailblazer back in her day, because back then women were not really ag teachers. I really admire that in her, that she didn’t really let it stop her just being female and that she really was around before women were really even allowed to even join FFA. She was a trailblazer for her time. I appreciate both Dr. Jackie Deeds and Beth Randall for influencing my life.
Mike Howell (23:10):
I know Dr. Deeds. Back when I was finishing my bachelor’s degree, and that was way back in 1996, I had one class I had to take my senior year and finish everything up, and that was technical writing. And Dr. Deeds taught that class herself way back then. She didn’t let a student teach it for her, but that class was at three o’clock on Friday afternoons. It met more than just Fridays, but she always had some special project that we had to do at three o’clock on Friday afternoon. She would not let us start the weekend one minute early. And if you weren’t in class, you were definitely going to have a pop quiz that day. I know Dr. Deeds well, and I didn’t think at the time that I would ever need to know anything at all about technical writing, but that’s another thing that I do every day, it seems like.
(23:56)
Listeners, we hope you’ve really enjoyed this episode. I know I had a great time bringing it to you today. I want to encourage you to get a young person involved in 4-H, whether it’s your child or your neighbour. Introduce them to the 4-H programme. There’s a world of leaders out there today that started off in 4-H and we need to keep that going on for years to come. Also, if you need to find out any more information about any of agronomy or agriculture related topics, I want to remind you to visit our website. That’s Nutrien-eKonomics.com. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
