Agriculture faculties often sit oddly within the modern university.  I mean this literally in the sense that they are usually off at one end of campus or in some cases several tens of kilometres away from it.  Despite strong roots (heh) in the biological sciences, they get treated as separate entities for reasons that aren’t really evident from a scientific point of view.  The rough analogy from the physical sciences  is computer science, which, like agriculture, has a pretty high “applied science” quotient but somehow never broke off at an administrative level in the same way.  It’s not unheard of to have “faculties” of computer science (shout out here to Dal and UNB) but it is rare; conversely Agriculture is almost always given a “faculty” designation.

Why?  History, of course.  Specifically, American history, and the collision of German scientific research with principles of mass higher education.  Very briefly: many early universities in America had a mission of “serving the public” that was quite different from the norm in Europe.  Since “the public” in early nineteenth century in America was overwhelmingly rural, this effort often manifested itself in offering courses in agriculture, albeit not always up to the degree level.  When the Morrill Act was passed in 1862, most states suddenly found themselves in possession of a ton of money to fund the “Agricultural & Mechanical” (A&M) Arts.  In most states, that meant setting up new institutions, though occasionally the money went to an existing institution (some of which ended up misappropriated – the University of Vermont tried to use the dough to fund its fondest desire, namely crushing Middlebury’s classics department).

At the same time, in the first half of the nineteenth century, German states were busy setting up agricultural research stations run by university graduates and thus applying science to a key area of the economy in the way only Germans seemed to be able to do that way back then.  The idea hopped the ocean when American scientists, impressed at what they saw in Germany (all serious American scientists back then spent time in Germany) began setting up similar stations, the difference being that in the US they were usually set up in affiliation with a university – often these new “land grant” universities – rather than being free-standing institutions.  So now institutions were in possession of both money and a mission to do not just research and teaching in this field but to conduct public outreach to farmers (often known as “extension”) as well.  It’s not an exaggeration to say that the resulting Faculties of Agriculture which emerged are in effect the spiritual home of the modern North American university and its missions.

Canada took awhile to follow.  The Ontario government established the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph in the 1870s (it was almost placed in Mimico, which would have been pretty hilarious) – eventually, it would become one of the three founding components of the University of Guelph but it would be run by U of T for the first ninety years.  It didn’t offer actual degrees until the 1888s, and agricultural education followed quickly in McGill, Laval and Manitoba, and by 1920 Alberta, Saskatchewan and (sort of) Montreal had joined.  Pretty much across the board, but especially in the three western provinces, Agricultural faculties were very definitely set up along the American model, with research and extension being part of the mandate from the get-go.

But then, having effectively created the modern university model of teaching, research and service, the whole field slowly got shunted to the margins.  The age of manufacturing meant that Mechanics (or rather, Engineering) became the sexier applied discipline and Agriculture was intellectually shunted off to the side at many institutions. It remained indispensable, of course – no one got rid of Agriculture the way, say, they got rid of Home Economics – and still occasionally lucrative (Guelph’s Ontario Agricultural College still does about $100 million a year, mainly through a long-term deal with the Ontario government, which is a hell of a base on which to build a research program).

But what’s been fascinating to watch over the last decade or so is the re-emergence of Agriculture as a site for program “innovation”.  As computerization came to agriculture, and as green agriculture came to the fore, governments and industry re-discovered the economic potential of Agriculture faculties, which in turn began to partner with other fields in areas like “food engineering” and agricultural business programs.  Fast-forward into a pandemic year when food security became an extremely hot topic and all of a sudden Agriculture is arguably more central to discussions of “big science” in Canada than it has been in a century, and in terms of developing new programs at both the graduate and undergraduate level is arguably the hottest spot in universities right now.

All of which is by way of introduction to a new installment in Higher Education Strategy Associates’ Monitoring Trends in Academic Programs series, authored by my excellent colleague Jonathan McQuarrie, which focusses specifically on Agriculture (for previous editions on the humanities and the health sciences, please see here).  As usual, Jonathan has scanned the world for new developments in academic programming in this field and what is striking about the survey is the sheer number of new programs out there which are interdisciplinary in nature (which underlines my earlier point about Agriculture moving back to the centre of academia – other disciplines don’t do cross-overs with you unless you’re “hot”).  There is also something of a conceptual shift from “agriculture” to “food”, which in part implies co-ordination with engineering and computer science to the extent that it is about agricultural manufacturing and with business to the extent that its is about marketing and distribution.  In either case, it is interesting just from a history-of-disciplines point of view, at the amount of intellectual/scientific territory that Agriculture is now covering.

But there are two other findings from this survey which I think is worth considering.  The first is that there is a real trend in Agriculture programs to target underserved populations, particularly where the universities are outside major cities.  The second is the extent to which specific programs are adopting their own “mission statements”, often relating to food security and global standards such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To my mind, this is very much in the best traditions of late-19^th and early 20^th century agriculture, when these programs were seen as the only path into higher learning for students from rural background, and when these faculties led the universities to which they were attached in providing service to the broader community. 

In any case: enjoy the report, it’s a good read. And if by chance you’re thinking of adding or altering any academic programs in your bailiwick, remember that HESA does continual scanning of how universities and colleges are modifying their offerings and offers services to a number of universities and colleges across the country in the development of new programs. If you need help, we’d love to hear from you.

Have a good weekend.