Chickens and Livestock 101

These days, many high school programs are held in dinky, makeshift portables.

That's not the case for the 100-year-old agriculture program at Watsonville High School, which hosts two green houses, three full-sized classrooms, a spacious metal and wood shop, and an office. There's also an outdoor area with room for growing fruits and vegetables, and raising chickens and livestock. 

This year, 20 students have opted to raise piglets, which they will feed, care for and prepare for sale in the spring at the Salinas Valley Fair in King City. Many of the students will double their investment, earning money that they can use to fund college.

The program is geared to give students exposure to as many different aspects of agriculture as possible.

“They don’t become experts in any one topic but build awareness about what’s really out there in the world of agricultural job opportunities,” said Ryan Kuntz, who's taught in the department for 13 years.

Kuntz is one of two teachers who run the program. Grace Clark teaches veterinary science part-time, while Kuntz teaches agriculture engineering and other courses. Last year, Kuntz was left with a heavy load when the only other full-time instructor in the department retired.

Clark said she hopes the school will eventually bring on another teacher and keep the program flourishing. She is concerned that with the department staff down by almost half, it could eventually disappear. And, she said, that would be tragic, because of the important work being done with students on the brink of adulthood.

“It teaches them so much about responsibility,” said Clark. Parents typically don’t want their kids to have animals, because the burden too often falls on them. But at Watsonville High, students learn how to be completely in charge of their project. “It’s so valuable, plus, it makes them want to learn about other things like nutrition and math—for weighing feed," she said.

The national Future Farmers of America also started an extracurricular program at the school in the 1930s, and has fostered leadership and agriculture industry skills there ever since.

Clark enjoys seeing students succeed and the confidence that grows in them. She recalls a shy student from last year coming out of her shell and becoming the FFA vice president this year. 

But the program depends on community support. Whether that support comes in equipment, raw material donations, youth mentorship or purchasing license plates to support the FFA program, it keeps Watsonville High’s agriculture department alive.

While department staffing is lean, collaborations with outside organizations and agencies are abundant.

For the past three years, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) ran a program at Watsonville High, said Amy Kaplan, central coast assistant for biological agriculture. The pilot program was developed to give students more education in organic practices and provide ways, such as internships, for them to enter careers in the field.

From that partnership, students had the idea to sell the produce they grew at the Watsonville Farmers' Market. “They harvest, produce and sell it at the market,” said Kaplan, who was as impressed with the students’ entrepreneurial drive as she was with the schools greenhouse and garden facilities.

“It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, allowing students to do something positive with the agriculture knowledge they possess,” said Kuntz.

Last year, another collaboration with UC Santa Cruz was funded through a National Science Foundation grant. The five-year project allows environmental studies graduate students to gain experience teaching at Watsonville High. That’s what the agriculture department is all about, according to Kuntz—hands-on learning.