Agriculture Education Gets Boost From New Illinois Senate Bill

CHICAGO, IL -- Illinois agriculture education will be getting a boost thanks when a new state senate bill goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2017.

The legislation, Senate Bill 2975, will add agriculture education as an area of identified staff shortage, which would make additional scholarship money available for those who want to go into agriculture education.

The measure was pushed by Sen. Bill Cunningham, whose 18th District represents Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences.

“There is a shortage of qualified agricultural education teachers in Illinois,” Cunningham said in a written statement. “As a result, fewer students are receiving science and business-based instruction that could prepare them for the growing number of jobs available in agriculture.”

Cunningham pointed to a recent Purdue University study that found nearly 58,000 jobs will open annually across the United States in occupations involving food, agriculture, and natural resources over the next five years. Colleges and universities are not training enough students to qualify for those jobs, the study said.

Chicago Ag specializes in teaching agriculture to students in the Chicago Public School system. The 18th district encompasses portions of Worth, Orland and Palos townships in the southwest suburbs and the neighborhoods of Mount Greenwood, Beverly, Morgan Park and Auburn-Gresham in Chicago.