When agro-industry leaders expressed the need for professional development courses to improve the knowledge of their employees on agronomy subjects, Purdue answered the call starting his agronomy Elearning Academy. (Photo of courtesy)
West Lafayette, ind. – As a district seed representative for Dekalb / Asgrow, Alex Beck is an essential expert for business products and a source of agronomic recommendations to help farmers succeed, develop more bushels and be more profitable.
He is also someone who is serious about continuous learning. This has made the agronomy of Beck and the agronomy of the university university a natural twinning when he sought to improve his knowledge of agronomy in general and the management of nutrients and precision agriculture in particular.
Beck is part of more than 2,600 learners from the 50 Porto Rico states and 48 countries around the world who have taken courses in the Agronomy Elearning Academy Since the Purdue College of Agriculture has introduced the online program 10 years ago.
“The Purdue program has enormous flexibility, allowing you to finish it around a busy work schedule, and it is from a school that has a huge credibility in agriculture,” said Beck, whose family sums up corn, soy, luzerne and butcher's cattle on 510 acres in eastern Iowa.
In addition to the United States, students came from Africa, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, among others. There are forms of agriculture that make the program applicable in large everywhere, said Professor of Purdue, Bruce Erickson, who has always started and always supervises the Elearning Agronomy Academy.
In addition to the original course of original agronomy, the program now includes the accuracy of agriculture, added in 2016, the management of nutrients in 2017 and the essentials Essentials Europe in 2020. The precision of agriculture obtains a remake as a digital aging, to host subjects such as artificial intelligence, automation and robotics, and there are a new soil course and agricultural management and the management of the farm and the economy.
“When I found Purdue's agronomy, the earning academy, that was exactly what I was looking for,” said Karlee Rauschenberger, a former teacher whose family began to cultivate 650 acres in the North Dakota two years ago. “I went to participate in culture tours and to feel as if I did not understand what was going on to be able to get involved and ask questions. Each course and module benefited our agricultural operation. ”
The number of people who follow the courses and their geographic diversity are marks of the success of the program, as well as the diversity of their jobs and their careers. Farmers follow the program, of course, but it regularly attracts employees, for example, seed companies, fertilizers and agricultural services, as well as vineyards, food companies, raw material traders, companies that write agricultural insurance policies, etc.
“I think the best part of this program is the extent of the people who take it,” said Sue Bennett, who administers and markets the program today. “They are everywhere. They do all kinds of things. We have educators and learners from other institutions who take a course to fill the shortcomings they have. I think it's quite incredible. ”
Béla Kocsy, agricultural attaché at the Embassy of Hungary, said that following the essentials of agronomy essentials was like a child eating chocolate – he could not stop.
“After the first, I did all the other parties and I am so happy to have done it,” said Kocsy, who obtained his professional harvest certificate by finishing all the courses of the Academy. “I also broadcast the word in (Washington) DC with my agricultural advisers on the value that it was precious to understand American agriculture.”
The Agronomy Elearning Academy began because Purdue had heard partners with whom he worked in the agricultural services industry that some people they hired needed more skills in agronomy and basic agriculture. A century ago, half of the Midwest population lived in farms and these employees had often come from a farm environment, but that had become less common.
“They wanted base lessons who would help their staff who worked in the field and worked in other areas of the company, laboratories and sales, and so on, who needed more agronomy educationMore soil education, and AG precision was an extensive thing, “said Purdue professor Joseph Anderson, head of the department of agronomy at the time.
Anderson asked Dean Jay Akridge at the time for two years of funding to start the program and the college agreed to try his luck. They then needed someone to remove the agronomy earning academy. Enter Erickson, whom Anderson met when Erickson was a doctoral student. Erickson had a doctorate in agronomic education and had developed courses for Purdue and for organizations like the American Society of Agronomy.
With Erickson on board, they organized a key assembly with industry stakeholders in a hotel near Indianapolis airport to obtain stakeholders and determine what should be included in the program. After that, Erickson began to assemble the program.
Potential students were not people who could draw issues and come to campus and it was not something that the popularization team was equipped to manage at the time, it was obvious that the program was going to have to be online.
Years before the pandemic, the systematic development of standard online online programs in Purdue, the development of the Agronomy Earning Academy was not a turnkey operation. The video was to be a key aspect of the courses, for example, and Erickson had essentially had to turn into a producer, with the help of experienced students who created videos for the sports teams of Purdue and Hall of Music at the time. Purdue had new green wallpapers for recording, but video quality was not what business customers were waiting for. They have made many modifications, adding a second camera and additional lighting, using a lapel microphone instead of the boom micro and adding confidence monitors on the sides.
“And he built it as he stole it, literally,” said Bennett.
Erickson said: “I was under extreme pressure to launch in time. We started offering the first course before we finished it.”
They announced printed agricultural publications, contacted the company's contacts, sent mass emails to generate students and – this worked.
“I was in fact very satisfied with our first set of registrations, then he continued to increase and became a constant flow of people,” said Anderson.
Anderson said he thought Purdue could saturate the market after about five years, but that the program continues to be popular, motivated by the needs and reputation of Purdue as a higher agricultural school, word of mouth, a strong presence on Google and social media, and the constant courtification by Bennett of existing and potential customers.
“There is still an important market on people we could help,” said Bennett.
Said Erickson: “Farmers and agro-industry people need to know how a corn factory grows. They need to know how nutrients exist in the soil. They need to know the basic principles of pest management. They need to know the environmental consequences of their actions.
– Purdue College of Agriculture University
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