Nonprofit Introduces Ventura County Students to High-Tech Ag Work

PHOTO: Drone surveys a field in Monterey County. The drone company, Parabug, serves farms companies in Oxnard and other parts of the tri-county region. (courtesy photo)

By Jorge Mercado / Friday, February 4th, 2022 / Pacific Coast Business Times

The agricultural industry is one of the biggest employers in Ventura County, but most young people, especially those with parents who work intensive jobs in the industry, tend to overlook the variety of jobs available.

That’s where SEEAG comes in.SEEAG, or Students for Eco Education and Agriculture, is a Ventura-based non-profit that aims to teach young minds, from middle to high school, about the ag industry in Ventura County, and expose them to career possibilities for well-paying jobs in the sector, including those in science and technology.

Founder Mary Maranville grew up with parents working in the ag industry, but even she admits she knew very little about it.

“I didn’t know that I could have a career in agriculture. By association, agriculture was seeing my father milking cows,” Maranville told the Business Times. “I didn’t know that agricultural education would be a career. I didn’t know about marketing and agricultural communications, which is a huge field right now or the technology involved in the field.”

That is what inspired her to start the organization in 2008 and later help it achieve non-profit status in 2013. Maranville said she thinks her program is “absolutely making a difference.” She hopes to start a scholarship fund soon, for young people who want to go to college seeking a job in the ag industry.

The Gene Haas Foundation has donated $25,000 to SEEAG, specifically for the program’s program on careers in the ag industry in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

The programs are provided at no cost to schools and are designed to teach middle and high school students about technology and science-driven agricultural careers.

Originally, the Haas Foundation donated $10,000 but added on another $15,000, Maranville said, allowing the organization to hire and retain the staff needed to give those presentations.

Maranville started giving the presentations herself, but now, Seth Wilmoth, SEEAG’s program educator, does a lot of that work.

“Working in this industry is rooted from wanting to make an impact in food systems as a whole,” Wilmoth said. “My dad grew up on a farm and I got an interest in agriculture, and once I came across and saw the different range of careers in ag and how essential it is, I wanted to spread that to others.”

When people think about working in agriculture, they think it revolves around a lot of picking, planting and intensive labor. But, as Wilmoth and Maranville both stressed, there is much more to it, thanks to the rapid embrace of technology.

“Their minds are blown because they associate agriculture with two jobs: the farmer on the tractor and a field worker,” Maranville said. “So when you say there’s 30,000 jobs in agriculture in Ventura County and some of them are six-figure jobs, they have a renewed interest.”

Maureen McGuire, the CEO of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, worked for seven years at Good Farms. There, she noted the rapid advancements in tech and innovation the farm employed during her tenure.

For example, farms now use sensors to collect data and use GPS and drones to monitor crops and field conditions. Automated transplanters put vegetables in the ground with a fraction of the human labor that would be involved in planting by hand.

“We use GPS, drones, jets flying over these thousands of acres taking infrared photos to spot trees that are dying,” Maranville said. “That gets students excited about not just having a career that entails working outdoors, but working with the latest technology.”

During her time at Good Farms, embracing this technology led to job creation, McGuire said, with the farm hiring data analysts as well as people to deploy the new tech and teach farmworkers how to use it.

McGuire held a few SEEAG presentations during her time at Good Farms, so she understands the need to encourage students about agricultural jobs.

“It’s really important because that’s where growth in agriculture is going to come, and those are the fields in which we need to populate with young people,” McGuire said.

Wilmoth delivered three presentations at Oxnard High School on Jan. 28. The school boasts a strong robotics lab with many students interested in careers in robotics.

Those careers could be in the ag industry, with robots picking weeds and using small technical vacuums to dispose of bugs, instead of using pesticides.

“You need people from the beginning to the highest level innovating each and every aspect of it, so it might not be pretty to begin with — like any job, there’s grunt work — but the outcomes and what you’re accomplishing is significant,” Wilmoth said.