‘More than plows, cows and sows:’ Yolanda Owens promotes agricultural education among younger generations

Olivia Riley
Thu, 07 Mar 2024 02:50:04 +0000
Arts & Life, Features, Instagram Page, News, Print Edition, Agricultural, agriculture, alum, and Environmental Sciences, apparel, arts & life, community, diversity, education, farming, Forage + Black, gardening, landscaping, ohio state, ohio state alumni, Ohio State college of Food, The Lantern

Owens wearing a Forage + Black shirt while speaking at her TEDx Talk, titled “Agricultural Education: A Love Story,” in 2020. Credit: Courtesy of Yolanda Owens

A small shed sat near the back of Yolanda Owens’ grandmother’s house.

Nestled within were terracotta pots, piles of dirt, gardening gloves and seedlings covering handmade wooden tables. Cobwebs lingered in the corners. The ceiling, which was made of glass, opened to the sky during warm, North Carolina summers.

To most, a backyard greenhouse is just a home to pots and plants. But for Owens, it’s where her love of food and agriculture bloomed.

“That gave me an understanding and an appreciation of the work that brought food to our table,” Owens, a 2007 Ohio State alum, said. “There’s a love that goes into every stage of growing food, and I want everyone to have access to that.”

In 2020, Yolanda Owens became the first Black/Latina president of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences — or CFAES — Alumni Board. After holding the position for two years, she began working as a pathways and partnerships strategist for the CFAES.

Now, Owens said she wants to educate more young people on agriculture’s societal importance.

“[Agriculture] is more than plows, cows and sows,” Owens said. “It’s the food that we’re eating, the clothes that we wear and it’s the fuel in our cars.”

Owens said she wasn’t always certain about having a career in agriculture. In fact, she came to Ohio State to study communications.

During what would have been her second year, Owens took a break from her studies and traveled to Ghana, West Africa, through Rites of Passage — an organization focused on improving the lives of at-risk youth via specialized programs and partnerships — where her path was forever altered.

While there, she visited a cocoa farm and spoke to a young girl whose family harvested cocoa beans. Notably, Owens said the girl wasn’t able to afford the chocolate her family had worked so tirelessly to make.

“Seeing a group be so resource-rich yet so economically poor changed my outlook,” Owens said. “That’s when I realized that our system is so broken for people in certain communities.”

When she returned to Ohio State, Owens hit the ground running. She changed her major to agricultural communications, specialized in international, social and economic development, and didn’t look back.

Being named the first Black/Latina president of the CFAES Alumni Society Board was an immense source of pride, Owens said.

“Being the first Afro-Latina woman in a role like this, I was grateful to have been given a platform,” Owens said. “Not only to share my story but to help share what it looks like to be a person of color in this space.”

Andy Vance, the board’s current president, said he often seeks out Owens for advice.

“Among her superpowers is this innate ability to connect with people,” Vance said. “When she led our strategic planning process during her term as president, her vision truly helped us rechart the course of where we are going as an organization.”

While working with the CFAES Alumni Society Board, Owens said she learned about significant disparities within the agricultural industry, especially when it comes to diverse populations.

“We can engage more young people in the [agricultural] sector with more diverse thoughts and more diverse perspectives,” Owens said.

And she’s right about the disparity. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest agricultural census of Ohio in 2022, less than 0.01% of Ohio farms are owned by Black or African American producers.

As stated on its website, CFAES is working to change such statistics through various programs and initiatives. One such workshop — titled “Implicit Associations, Insidious Assumptions: Unintended Manifestations of Bias in Everyday Life” — is scheduled for March 14, the website states.

“Agriculture has something to offer everybody,” Kathy Lechman, assistant dean and director for diversity, equity and inclusion for CFAES, said in an email. “For us to meet the workforce demands of the agricultural industry, we must continue to foster a thriving pipeline to our college for all student populations, creating pathways for young people who have not traditionally found careers in agriculture.”

Lechman said creating spaces for people of all backgrounds to learn about agriculture is CFAES’ key goal.

“We believe that diversity and excellence are intertwined,” Lechman said. “Fostering an inclusive environment enhances the academic experience.”

Outside of her work at Ohio State, Owens aims to promote agricultural education via her apparel and garden consulting business “Forage + Black.” She said the online shop is designed to be a bridge between Black culture and increased green thumb development.

“As an agricultural communicator, I love words, right?” Owens said. “I wanted something on my products that was [agriculture-related] but also spoke to my Black culture and my experiences.”

Beyond her other roles, Owens is a mom of two daughters, who remind her of her work’s crucial importance every day. So much so, in fact, that Owens is currently collaborating with Columbus City Schools and other educators to incorporate agricultural education into their curriculums.

“I realized not long ago that I can’t go out and save the world when there are people right in my own community who need a better connection with food and where it comes from,” Owens said. “We need to understand that we don’t only need food to survive, but to thrive, too.”

More information about Owens, as well as Forage + Black, can be found on the company’s website.