Hundreds and hundreds of people during your college years will ask you what you’re studying. Followed by your answer, they will ask you why you are studying that or about your plans in the field.

Well, as an Agricultural Sciences major, or very similarly Agricultural Education, the last two questions come up quite a bit, especially when talking to people outside of the farming community. So when I answer them about what I’d specifically like to do, I tell them about my aspirations of working with older youth as they better themselves, agriculture, and the world through ag education, whether it be in 4-H, FFA, or other programs. To answer the “why?” question is harder to put a finger on.

I think every farmer in the United States knows why he or she is involved with American agriculture, but it’s hard to put the “why” into words. Here’s my shot at trying to capture why I, and so many others, want to devote my life to promoting and preserving American agriculture:

Simply put, it’s beautiful. There’s beauty in every corner of agriculture. It’s a beauty that remains the same from your first day in it to your last. It’s one that develops as time flies by but makes you feel like you did the very first time you saw a farm. It’s a beauty that for so many signifies home, family, or American pride. American agriculture even captures so many great virtues and blessings, making it even more beautiful.

Going even deeper, agriculture gives American farmers some of the greatest virtues and blessings God could ever give us. Each of them overlaps another, but each is also rooted in faith.

A strong sense of community is one of the biggest blessings in the agriculture community. People are always there to support you and there to tell you that tomorrow will be better. There is always hope, and with that hope comes faith. The strength in faith for the community is what brings everyone together.

Farming teaches you forgiveness. No matter what horrible hurricane, drought, or snowstorm Mother Nature brings to your land, you still need to forgive her because that’s how you have to go on. There will always be something. And with this forgiveness comes patience and understanding that things take time.

And the greatest (I believe) blessing or virtue American farmers have been given and learn to grow in is love. Love for what the farmer does, the land, his or her animals, and ability and opportunity to farm in the United States. There’s not a farmer in this country, or even world, who doesn’t love what he or she does. Organizations like PETA or environmental coalitions can tell us that we’re treating animals horribly and harming the environment, but farmers know that’s not the truth. They do their jobs because they love what they do and love to do it well.

But the beauty in American agriculture isn’t just the view of the vivacious rolling hills and pastures covered in green grass or the stillness in the snow-covered plains during the winter. It’s not only the rustic barns with more character than most people’s homes today, the fast growth of healthy, tall corn in the summer that makes you feel small, or even the fields full of flowers absorbing every ray the sun exerts. It’s more than a picturesque view.

Some of the most incredible beauty in agriculture is what it does for a person and for the world. For me, ag’s beauty first hit me when I realized how fantastic a dairy cow actually is. She’s bigger than anything I could understand at the time, and that was mesmerizing to me. I’ve grown because of that realization. It’s taken me around the world. But the beauty has changed in my eyes, which is so meaningful to me. Now, the beauty in American ag strikes me most when I see people defending an industry they’re so passionate about and witnessing people pouring their heart into something greater than themselves. And in 50 years, I think I’ll see agriculture as beautiful in a different way, too. I expect I’ll see it in the changes agriculture is going to have to have made to feed the growing world at that time. But I know that beauty and love for it will feel the same as it did when I first saw how phenomenal agriculture is.

For the world, agriculture is changing, which is quite a feat in itself. It is developing into a bigger and better field for more and more people. This might be why we have such a hard time expressing the necessity of American agriculture and protecting our farms to the public and our legislators. This may be why there’s such a gap in people understanding things like GMOs and who’s actually polluting the Chesapeake Bay. Change is part of life, and agriculture is beautiful because it embodies that but is also teaching us about the world and ourselves (and our industry) through these changes.

And the reason I’m focusing on American agriculture instead of the industry in a global sense is because agriculture is such a large part of the United States. A farmer in jeans on his John Deere tractor with pastures and red barns in the background or a barn with an American flag spread across a barn’s side are images many people will admit to envision when thinking of the US or of an American. Sure, you also may think of New York City or some other city, but the American pride and heritage is rooted in agriculture because it’s what got us to where we are today and keeps us going and growing. It’s our country’s history and backbone, and there’s no denying the beauty in that.

Although you might not always pair “success” with “farming” in a financial sense, farmers are really living the American dream because they’re representing their country and they’re loving what they do and doing what they love, on top of making themselves, the country, and even the world better. Every day they get more out of their jobs than most people do in a career, and I have one word for that and the country’s #1 industry – beautiful. That’s why I want to work in American agriculture. Why do you?