Growing up in a rural community in Missouri and Oklahoma my high school offered a variety of Agriculture classes as an elective that students could take. I personally took, Ag I, Animal Science, Equine Science, Vet Science, Forestry, and Ag Leadership. I also spent a lot of time in the Horticulture class that I wasn't actually enrolled in.

These weren't even all of the Ag classes that were offered there were a plethora of other options my schedule just didn't allow me to be in them. As one might assume in these classes we studied animals as well as crops among a lot of other things. However, everything we learned translated into real life situations that we as young agriculturalist could be facing in the near future.

While taking these classes were a choice for me I feel as if it should be a requirement for all high school students to take an Agriculture Class at least once in their high school career. I read a post recently that said that a person had learned about crop rotation in school but hadn't learned about taxes which while to some taxes probably seem more important than crops that is not the case as crops are equally important.

Everything you do in a day, what you eat, what you wear, what you drive to school or work, all of those things are doable because of the knowledge that we have of crops. For instance look at what you are wearing today, I am wearing a sweatshirt, leggings, and flip-flops. My sweatshirt and leggings both come from cotton among other things therefore, crops are to thank for my outfit. For lunch, I ate a cheeseburger and french fries.

The bun on my burger was made from wheat and potentially other grains, and even the beef in my hamburger wouldn't be possible without the knowledge of crops; beef cattle whether they are grain or grass finished depend on some type of crop as their source of food.

Now you may be wondering how what you drive to school or work could possibly have to do with crops. Well, that fuel that you have to put in your car so that you can drive it more than likely has corn ethanol in the blend making crops the reason you are able to drive your vehicle.

I know that you might be thinking not everyone needs to know about crops. However, when you take into consideration that everything comes from crops shouldn't we make sure that society as a whole at least has somewhat of an idea where their food, clothes, the fuel used for vehicles come from? Also, that isn't all that we have that are due to crops those are just a few really easy examples.

Lastly, as agriculturalists, it is our duty to make sure that everyone is informed. Everyone is encouraged to form their own opinions on things however with social media today and the way that it portrays the Agriculture industry it is important to make sure that everyone knows the truth about how farming works, what we do, why we do it, and how our environment and lives would be so different if things weren't done this way.

I'm not saying everyone needs to be a farming or be involved in Agriculture but please take the time to be educated about it and then appreciate that education because yes agriculture and crops more specifically are important to everyone so yes you should learn about them in school regardless of where you are at in the country.