The president of the Iowa Board of Regents is a great promoter of agricultural education in the United States as “Today’s Solution for Tomorrow’s World.”

Bruce Rastetter visited the 2013 Farm Progress Show last month to talk about the importance of agricultural education and the vast number of career choices available for students of all backgrounds. “I think the biggest fields are agronomy, plant sciences, the animal science area is growing because of world protein demand, but it’s really the technology, the innovation and the ability to use science to create greater yields,” he told me.

Rastetter says Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture has record enrollment this fall, fourth largest in the country, and nearly every single student has a job by the time they graduate, “with the majority of them having five offers by December of their senior year.”

He believes students with non-ag background will be more interested in agricultural careers if they realize its importance in feeding the world. “If it wasn’t for Norman Borlaug there would be a couple billion of people that would have died in the world. We need to make sure that we encourage an education system that develops the next Norman Boraug for the world,” said Rastetter.

Listen to my conversation with Bruce from Farm Progress Show: Interview with Iowa Board of Regents president Bruce Rastetter