Isaiah Imholt leaned forward on his stool, captivated by the video playing on his headset.

Imholt, a fifth grader at Bologna Elementary in Chandler, had never followed a veterinarian around a dairy before.

But thanks to the magic of virtual reality, he was there, learning why the milk we buy at the store depends on this work.

“The cows were in this big place with shade,” he said, wide-eyed, describing what he saw. “It was 105 degrees outside, but there were these spinning things with mist that made it feel more like 80.”

Imholt and his class were part of an Arizona Farm Bureau Agriculture in the Classroom pilot that uses virtual reality headsets to teach about careers in and related to agriculture.

The hands-on lessons expose elementary students to a wide variety of jobs that support the production of food, fiber and minerals in Arizona — from flavor chemists and biologists to programmers and machinists.

Arizona farm jobs are changing

Agriculture’s impact runs deep and wide in Arizona, where more than a third of its vast land area is used for crop or livestock production.

Though the industry only employs about 22,000, it purchases enough goods and services in adjacent fields to indirectly support an estimated 126,000 full- and part-time jobs statewide.

But the job outlook is changing — and rapidly so.

Demand for food and fiber is estimated to increase over the next decade. Yet Arizona’s farming and ranching jobs are expected to shrink by more than 9% during that time.

Grading, sorting and manual laborer jobs — those that are already tough to fill today — are expected to decline the most, as automation and other emerging technologies become more prevalent.

That will require new skills but also create opportunities for young, tech-savvy workers.

Workers will need tech, math skills

In Yuma County — where 1 in 4 jobs are tied to agriculture — this future is already beginning to play out. 

Drones and artificial intelligence are increasingly being used to monitor crop health. Water and fertilizer are being more precisely measured and applied, even varying by the plant. 

This technology has great potential to lower labor costs, complete tasks faster and grow more with less. But it will require a skilled workforce to keep it running.

“In the future, we’re going to be collecting massive amounts of data,” said Matt McGuire, chief agricultural officer at Yuma-based JV Farms, among the first in the industry to adopt automation and AI.

Laborers will need math and data entry skills, he said. And foremen will increasingly become technology troubleshooters.

“But while some new jobs will be created on the farm, I expect to see more in the auxiliary services to ag — in seed, chemical and genetic companies, just to name a few.”

This changing job market also will require broader thinking about the industry — which is where the Agriculture in the Classroom pilot comes in.


VR pilot helps speak kids’ language

At Bologna Elementary, fifth graders chose among VR experiences shadowing a large animal veterinarian at a dairy, a metal fabricator on a farm, or a geologist and others at a copper mine.

Additional 360-degree videos are in the works to learn from a plant scientist at a tissue lab and a drone operator who helps with cloud seeding and measuring snowpack.

“Students often think of farmers and ranchers, but they don’t always realize that agriculture includes so many other careers,” said Katie Aikins, who leads the program. “We wanted to use technology to showcase the possibilities.”

Fifth graders are digital natives. And VR is becoming more popular in education — from elementary to college. A program like this speaks their language.

During the hour-long session, students attentively watched short videos of lasers zapping weeds and robots picking strawberries. They laughed as educator Alicia Gutierrez clapped to maneuver a small robot on a table.

They brainstormed the jobs involved in producing gummy bears, based on the ingredients listed on packs of the sweet, gelatin-based treats (which, of course, they were later allowed to eat). 

Meanwhile, school district administrators stood quietly at the edge of the library, taking notes on how Aikins and Gutierrez incorporated the technology into their lessons.

The district was eager to partner with Farm Bureau because it also is testing VR in a few classrooms and plans to offer a career awareness class in all K-6 schools this fall.

Based on the success of the Chandler pilot, Agriculture in the Classroom plans to offer VR career lessons in select schools statewide. Learn more at aitc@azfb.org.

Joanna Allhands writes about water, land use and other issues important to the Arizona Farm Bureau. Reach her at joannaallhands@azfb.org.