On the Record: AgTEC program equips farmworkers for the future

Cody Jacobsen is dean of agriculture and industrial technology at Merced College. He spoke with Ag Alert^® about the college’s Agricultural Technology and Education Collaborative, or AgTEC, program, which was designed to equip farmworkers with the skills they need to build successful careers in California’s evolving agriculture sector. The below conversation was edited for length and clarity.

What is your role as dean of agriculture and industrial technology at Merced College?
I oversee all of our agriculture programs. These range from ag education to plant science to animal science. I also oversee our industrial technology programs. And then, most recently, we developed our AgTEC program.

I also oversee our facilities, which include a living land lab and a 105-acre smart farm. We also have a 120-acre pistachio orchard off campus that I oversee.

What is the AgTEC program at Merced College?
The AgTEC program was built specifically for our farmworker population. The first cohort of 14 students began the program in August 2024. We’re about 14 months in, and we now have about 130 students.

It’s the first competency-based agriculture program in California. Instead of students enrolling from August through December and earning a letter grade, they need to show mastery of each competency taught in the course before moving on to the next competency. There is no time limit, which allows students to work at their own pace. At this time of year, for example, we’re finishing up harvest for a lot of crops, so a lot of folks are working and may not be able to be involved with their classes. But there are seasons in agriculture, and we know that in the next couple weeks, things will start slowing down, and they can get back to the course.

What is the F3 Initiative, and how is it related to the AgTEC program?
The F3 Initiative is comprised of three different gears: F3 Innovate, F3 Local and AgTEC Workforce. Merced College is the lead on AgTEC Workforce. There are six other community colleges that are also offering the program.

What do students learn in the AgTEC program?
Digital literacy is one component. Some of the core skills include how to operate a computer, open up a Microsoft Word document and compose an email. Another component is technical literacy. That includes things like reading instructions when mixing chemicals such as herbicides. Other skills include equipment operation and food safety. There are 14 competencies in all that are covered in this certificate.

What inspired Merced College to start this program?
Agriculture and the ag tech industry is evolving. Farmers are using newer and more efficient equipment. We learned that they don’t have folks who know how to operate or service that equipment. Our industry partners were telling us they don’t have people who can operate drones, who can use self-driving equipment or laser-weeders. We wanted to train the boots-on-the-ground laborers, the folks who are harvesting our fruits and vegetables, so that they can be competitive for these careers and not get displaced out of jobs.

How is the instruction done?
The course materials are online, but there is a lot of in-person support built in. Students have to showcase their mastery of the competencies in person, and there are student support coordinators that help them navigate the program.

In which languages is the program offered?
It’s a bilingual program. Students can toggle back and forth between English and Spanish. I’d like to be able to offer the program in additional languages such as Hmong and Punjabi to meet the needs of the local population.

How was the curriculum developed?
We surveyed more than 12,000 farmworkers, which was the largest survey of its kind, asking them how they wanted to learn—whether that was us coming to their employers and worksites, them coming onto campus, staying completely online or some kind of mixture.

Then we sat down with our industry partners, who are local farmers and processors employing more than 22,000 employees in the San Joaquin Valley. They sat at the table with our faculty and talked about the specific skills they wanted their current and prospective employees to have. This was in 2023.

What excites you about the AgTEC program?
The program is life-changing for people. These are unique populations that it was designed for. We have students ranging in age from 18 to 65 years old. We have traditional farm laborers, folks who have worked in the fields for the last 35 or 40 years. We have some traditional community college students. We also have some graduate students who have done brilliant research but have zero practical experience, and they’re in this program to become more competitive in the hiring pool. We have formerly incarcerated students who spent the last 10 to 15 years of their lives behind bars. So, it really does change lives, and that’s what excites me most.

The program is free for students. On top of that, there are some employers offering stipends to employees who complete the program. Some are offering $3,500 to their employees once they finish it.

Merced College is also building an AgTEC Innovation Center. What will the center feature? And what role will it play at the college and in the AgTEC program?
This is going to be a game changer not just for Merced College but for the entire valley. It’s a 22,000-square-foot facility. There will be several different processing rooms, including a meat processing facility to process livestock raised on our farm through the animal science programs. There will be a tree nut processing facility and a fruit and vegetable processing facility for fresh market produce packaging. It will also include a retail market to market all of those products. These facilities will be used both for traditional community college classes and for scaling up our AgTEC program. The center is scheduled to open next year.

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