Interpretive Summary: Latina lived experience as agricultural students at a Land-Grant university

By: Shannon L Archibeque-Engle

• Latiné student success is critical to meet the need for professional agriculturalists.
• The lived experience of Latina students at a Predominately White Land-Grant institution highlighted three distinct themes: Overt Exclusion, Nepantlera, and Intersectionality through the saliency of agricultural identity.
• To improve, students recommend acknowledgement of the saliency of an agricultural identity and its role in agricultural higher education, more professional Latiné mentors, professional development for agricultural education professionals, and a cultural home within the academic space.

Introduction

From food commercials to the United States Department of Agriculture, there are calls for more educated agriculturalists. Meanwhile, the Food and Agricultural Education Information System published data showing that in 2022, 12.1% of the total agricultural undergraduate student enrollment was Hispanic/ Latiné (Food and Agriculutral Education System, 2025). Further, Latinés have the highest labor force participation, with 66% of those 16 yr and older in the labor force. Latinés will account for 91% of new workers and one in five workers overall by 2031 (Excelencia in Education, 2025). From the Campesinos of the 1700s and the Bracero programs of the 20th century, Latinés have continually been a significant part of the agricultural landscape of the United States (Meier and Ribera, 1993). Yet, previous research shows that we do not find the demographics present in agricultural education that we find in the agricultural labor force (Warren and Alson, 2007; Cotton, Hashem, Marsh, and Dadson, 2009; Archibeque-Engle and Gloeckner, 2016). It is a foundational assumption of this research that those who have historically been a part of agricultural labor are a critical answer to the societal need for educated agriculturalists. While there has been a focus on recruiting Latinés and others to study agricultural sciences, there remains a need for an examination of the lived experience of undergraduates currently studying agricultural sciences in college (Warren and Alson, 2007; Martin and Hartmann, 2022). An established Land-Grant university (UNIV), the site of this investigation, has a particular College of Agricultural Sciences (CAS) that speaks of the “Ag Family” in its recruiting and communication materials to describe a welcoming and supportive learning environment. This inquiry probes if “Ag Family” adequately describes the lived experience of all CAS undergraduate students.

Read the full article in Animal Frontiers: Animal Science for All.