It doesn't matter if you're from a farm, a town, or the city; anyone can join 4-H and learn about agriculture. They can join a calf club or join any club. They can get the experience of agriculture and be introduced to it.
What we can do to encourage youth involvement in agriculture is get them in 4-H--it's very important--and also diverse job opportunities. If you can get different jobs available in the agriculture field for people, stuff that would be open to people who aren't just from farms, you'd get more people interested. You'd give these people experience as well.
Promoting the importance of agriculture is also important. Some people don't think about how important it is because they don't get their food straight from the farm. They go to the grocery store to get their food. So it's important to promote it as a lifestyle.
There are a couple of ways we can retain youth involvement in agriculture. Offer support to new and young farmers so they're not just people who are finishing their diplomas or degrees in agriculture; they're also people who are changing their lifestyles and their employment and becoming farmers.
Promoting agriculture as an area of academic study is also really important. You want to be able to give people the knowledge and tools to become successful farmers. You give people the chance to learn about new tools and different ways to become farmers, make money, and make it work. Otherwise people try and fail and quit, or they don't try at all because they don't know.
Promoting diversity of careers in agriculture, and particularly production, is also very important. You want to talk about different things. You want to talk about production--being there, raising livestock, raising crops, and things like that. It's also important to have a bit of diversity, such as research, and the different options, sales and so on, are also important.