A Critical Pedagogy of Agriculture

Abstract

Socio-cultural issues within our agrifood system such as social inequality, personal and community health, and the environment have been the subject of interdisciplinary inquiry and curriculum from inside and outside of education, but exploration of these topics from within Agriculture Education is lacking. The importance of these issues, as well as the responsibility that agriculture educators have to fostering agency and consciousness in the next generation of agriculturalists, requires that School Based Agriculture Education formulate a pedagogical framework to address them. This paper introduces a new pedagogical approach to be applied across SBAE programs- a critical pedagogy of agriculture. In order to accomplish this, (a) the need for a critical pedagogy of agriculture is discussed, (b) the history of critical theory and critical pedagogy is explained as well as other critical pedagogies that have emerged to address similar and overlapping issues with agriculture, and (c) suggestions for how to reimagine an entire SBAE program, including the FFA Chapter and Supervised Agricultural Experiences, through a critical lens are offered. Through a critical pedagogy of agriculture, the transformative potential of SBAE programs to empower students and address related social justice issues can be realized.