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A Review of Agricultural Academic Safety, Health, and Biosecurity Curriculum Standards
Glen C. Morris1,*, Shawn G. Ehlers1, William E. Field1, Roger Tormoehlen1
Published in Applied Engineering in Agriculture 38(6): 983-990 (doi: 10.13031/aea.15184). Copyright 2022 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.
1 Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
*Correspondence: morri540@purdue.edu
The authors have paid for open access for this article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License https://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Submitted for review on 11 May 2022 as manuscript number EOPD 15184; approved for publication as a Review Article by Associate Editor Dr. Robert Aherin and Community Editor Dr. Monica Gray of the Education, Outreach, & Professional Development Community of ASABE on 14 July 2022.
Highlights
Abstract. This article examines the published agricultural education standards from California, Indiana, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and The National Council for Agricultural Education. The overall aim was to access the attention given to, or inconsistencies in, agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity standards that are increasingly becoming central to agricultural production. This effort was part of a curricula design project to expand and enhance the Gearing Up for Safety – Production Agricultural Safety Curriculum for Young and Beginning Workers to ensure adequate coverage of biosecurity topics in secondary education programs. Agricultural education programs which involved topics of safety, health, and biosecurity, included curricula with outcomes and objectives that are created from competencies or standards. It was found that current standards give little attention, generally, to agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity. The academic standards reviewed had little consistency in the associated topics of safety and health, or biosecurity. The National Council for Agricultural Education and Wisconsin agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity standards constituted around 20% of the overall agricultural standard count. However, in most other states, the overall agricultural safety standards constituted as little as 3% of the overall standards. The lack of consistency in the standards, especially with respect to identification of desired learning outcomes makes curricula development efforts more difficult and less likely to meet actual needs in the field. The need to develop uniform educational standards that reflect the increasing importance being given to food safety, biosecurity and workplace safety and health was identified.
A goal of academic institutions and their respective educational programs is to prepare students for their future career and meeting their economic goals. Development and implementation of curricula programs and resources is one avenue to accomplish this goal. Successful academic programs and curricula include well-developed outcomes and objectives for their academic and professional success (Zoglmann et al., 2004). Hands-on experiences that teach safety concepts have served as a predictor of student performance and knowledge retention but have primarily been used only by Universities and Colleges in their academic programing (Zoglmann et al., 2004). Leadership and innovation in the development of youth academic curricula has been deeply seeded in youth agricultural programs, such as FFA and 4-H, and collectively, these organizations are focused on curricula design in many areas of agricultural education (Hoover et al., 2007).
This project’s focus is on the programs, standards, and curricula developed to teach youth about agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity. As youth-focused programming and curricula are guided by state education standards, there remains a need to better understand the state agricultural education standards (Killingsworth et al., n.d.). The educational standards areas that focus on agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity encompass biological and physical threats to the working individual/operations and appropriate awareness and response to these threats.
Research Aim
This review addresses two primary questions: (i) what academic programs are available for youth that focus on agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity, and (ii) what are the current agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity educational standards. This research was conducted in response to a review of curricula during development of a biosecurity-specific lesson for the nationally available Gearing Up for Safety Program. A review of the literature for academic programing included peer-reviewed papers, federal and state published documents, state educational standards, and program documents for various organizations. The state education standards for five highly engaged agricultural producing states, California, Indiana, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin were reviewed. Additionally, the Agricultural Forestry, and Natural Resources (AFNR) standards developed by The National Council for Agricultural Education (The Council) were also reviewed. The five previously mentioned states do not rely on the AFNR standards, but it is important to note that AFNR standards are used in many states. Sources for programming and education standards were reviewed using a combination of key words, including agricultural safety, agricultural health, agricultural biosecurity, disease, safety, and agrosecurity.
Background
Agricultural Education Standard Backgrounds
Just as agriculture varies throughout our nation and around the world, so does the education that is taught about agriculture, food, and natural resource education programs. An academic standard can vary between states and is usually abstract in the nature of the standard (Coates, 2010). Historically, the federal government played a minor role in education until the 1960’s with the introduction of greater funding and new policies (FindLaw Team, 2018). Ultimately, each state is responsible for the maintenance and operation of public schools and the establishment, selection, and regulation of curriculum, teaching methods, instructional materials, and academic standards (FindLaw Team, 2018). The term “standard,” in education and other fields, is used both substantively and descriptively to refer to measuring varying levels of quality or performance (Coates, 2010). This differentiation means that consequently, each state has different educational standards and policies with different performance expectations, resources available, and educational options for students.
Typically, a state has separate groups that work closely to develop and approve learning standards with the state board of education making the final approval. The curriculum taught often references knowledge as a practice rather than a technical skill (Paxton and Frith, 2014). There is a need for curriculum to include specific functions and generic conventions or practices of the content, rather than a generic knowledge base (Porter, 1994; Paxton and Frith, 2014). Additionally, agricultural literacy education may require looking for models from other education disciplines (Hess and Trexler, 2011). This is where organizations can be aided in the academic learning of agriculture and agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity.
Importance of Agricultural Safety Education
Youth agricultural safety and health continues to be a significant public health concern. During 2014, an estimated 2,270 injuries occurred to youth younger than 20 years of age on farm operations (Pate et al., 2019). This number consists of injuries caused by many threats (Pate et al., 2019), making reducing the number of agricultural injuries difficult. One of the main challenges to increasing education and training compliance are exemptions to OSHA safety standards provided under the Fair Labor Standards Act along with a lack of concern about the risk (Pate et al., 2019). The need for agricultural education in the classroom is faced with the social, economic, and political interface of agriculture and will require more research and attention to develop effective programs (Hess and Trexler, 2011). Cooperative Extension programs and high school agricultural educators are essential to providing youth the training and skills needed for agricultural operations. Additionally, teacher education preparedness will need to equip educators to better understand training core curricula areas to deliver subsequent content to continue the intellectual building process (Hess and Trexler, 2011).
The Hazardous Occupations Order in Agriculture (HOOA), created as part of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor and each State Department of Labor. “The U.S. Department of Labor authorized the Cooperative Extension Service and High School Agricultural Science programs to provide training opportunities that would permit youth 14 and 15 years of age to perform certain hazardous tasks when working for hire on a farm” (Gearing Up for Safety, 2020). HOOA is a federal regulation designed to promote agricultural safety and health training with youth. However, biosecurity is not specifically addressed. This act was later amended in 1963 to identify specific tasks in agricultural workplaces, which involve working with heavy machinery and large animals. Although HOOA does not specifically mention biosecurity, much of the processes involved in developing biosecurity protocols do involve large complex farm machinery, livestock, and their interaction with youth.
Non-formal education programs, like FFA and 4-H, have also aided in a greater understanding of leadership and agricultural topics, but additional training is needed to enhance safety, health, and biosecurity education in agriculture. Awareness, interaction, and mastery have been identified as curriculum coherences for youth in learning, and by “addressing each stage in each dimension, the complete and cohesive nature of a leadership curriculum that utilizes another component of agricultural education is possible” (Ricketts and Rudd, 2001).
The Council and Curriculum for Ag Science Education (CASE)
The National Council for Agricultural Education (The Council) and its initiative, the Curriculum for Agricultural Science Education (CASE) is a major group involved with curriculum development for agricultural science programs (Ortiz, 2021). CASE is a STEM-based curriculum helping teachers to present topics in agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) (The National Council for Agricultural Education, 2015). Two courses include Introduction to Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, and Principles of Agricultural Science, which include aspects of agricultural safety (Dormody et al., 2011).
AFNR Cluster Skills are accepted as the standards for agricultural education in many states and continue to serve as the benchmarks of scientific principles to be covered in agriscience classes (Dormody et al., 2011). Collectively, the AFNR Cluster Skills were developed by 270 volunteers representing educators at the secondary and post-secondary level (The National Council for Agricultural Education, 2015). Organizations, such as FFA and 4-H also promote AFNR education and contribute to the overall development of some standards.
CASE is an initiative of The Council and jointly managed by the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE) (The National Council for Agricultural Education, 2015). This initiative aims to connect education and industry through high quality curricula for students, certifications, and professional development opportunities for teachers. An educator looking to explore the pathways (i.e., Animal Science, Plant Science, Agricultural Engineering, and Natural Resources) can receive certification through CASE and receive improved instructional practices and relevant curricula sustained by professional development in the respective areas (The National Council for Agricultural Education, 2015). As there are no explicit “biosecurity” pathways, some concepts are adjacent and can be included as part of the current set of courses.
CASE and The Council are critical for promoting the integration of science into the secondary school agricultural curriculum and distributing relevant agricultural education curricula to its members. An early study of Indiana High School Agricultural Science and Business (ASB) teachers found there were barriers in the perceived integration of science curricula in their agricultural programs (Balschweid and Thompson, 2002). Some drawbacks to teaching integrated biological and physical science concepts in agricultural education were that the content required more preparation, requiring additional support when making changes to how that curriculum is delivered (Balschweid and Thompson, 2002). For this issue, it was determined that university faculty and state staff in agricultural education should provide educational opportunities for teachers on integrating science into their agricultural education program and provide a more science-rich curriculum for delivery (Balschweid and Thompson, 2002). Another study which specifically looked at experiences when teachers were implementing science education in the classroom found similar results (Lambert et al., 2014). Their findings showed that some teachers adapted more easily to the science curriculum, it was a beneficial experience to have the curriculum in the classroom, and attending training was vital to implementation of the curriculum (Lambert et al., 2014).
Youth Agricultural Safety, Health, Biosecurity Education
Agricultural safety education has been researched within the scope of public education, due to the high presence of injury that has occurred in the youth populations. Numerous studies have found that injury rates are higher among young people under the age of 21 compared to adults. Interventions that specifically address the risks youth face at work need to incorporate context-specific examples and other strategies into the curriculum (McCurdy and Kwan, 2012; Pate et al., 2019; Sámano-Ríos et al., 2019; Smathers et al., 2018).
Numerous studies have looked at youths' knowledge and general agricultural safety practices, but few studies have focused on agrosecurity or biosecurity within youth agricultural populations. For existing material, a typical biosecurity education program may begin with identifying and building awareness for home and surrounding environments (Murthy, 2015). Additionally, education might focus on reinforcing strengths on emerging biohazards along with biological safety techniques. The curricula for any school biosecurity program provides an opportunity to learn that actions can make a difference to the environment and promote involvement in public health, community health, and protecting the national food supply (Murthy, 2015).
4-H, one of those groups previously mentioned, appears to have in some states, a science-based biosecurity practice and education component that focuses on reducing risks associated with animal and zoonotic disease-causing agents (Smith et al., 2021). Previous 4-H educational programs have encompassed safety, including learning projects for personal, agriculture, and home safety (Reeves, 2018). With respect to biosecurity, 4-H also has incorporated a mandatory biosecurity class that students must take prior to showing animals at county fairs or livestock shows. However, when alumni of 4-H programs were researched in 2018, only 33% of the participants surveyed recalled participating in biosecurity or health related projects (Reeves, 2018). Overall, 4-H has been effective in providing a safe place for children to learn and grow, expanding various valuable life stills, and making a positive influence on their family life (Reeves, 2018).
More specific to agricultural biosecurity, research conducted on current 4-H programing has shown youth “improved their conceptual understanding of biosecurity, advanced their skills associated with best practices and supported related risk mitigation strategies on home premises and at public venues” (Smith et al., 2021). This recent study is consistent with literature, both currently and previously mentioned, that emphasize the importance of authentic engagement and a better presentation of technical skills to understand the scientific concepts and training (Smith et al., 2021). It is important to note that these programs, while beneficial, do not seem to be adopted as curriculum standards, but aid in the students overall outside learning of the subject matter. Establishing educational biosecurity standards would encourage the development and incorporation of such education content into existing curriculum.
The current standards related to agricultural biosecurity have different teaching objectives and have varying specificity. Agricultural safety, however, has more of a presence in state education standards. At the national level, there are 11 organizations that serve agricultural education, including: “Agricultural Education Division of the Association for Career and Technical Education, American Association for Agricultural Education, National Association of Agricultural Educators, National Council for Agricultural Education, National Association of Supervisors of Agricultural Education, National FFA Alumni Association, National FFA Foundation, Inc., National FFA Organization, National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization, National Farm and Ranch Business Management Education Association, and National Young Farmer Educational Association” (Ortiz, 2021).
There have been a few organizations that have dealt with agriculture education content creation, and even less so for agriculture safety or biosecurity. FFA, linked closely with The Council, has been indirectly and directly developing programs that meet state standards. FFA support groups and/or external assessment teams that create academic programing include classroom and laboratory instruction, work-based learning, and leadership and personal development through FFA. A lectured educational program, like the ones created by FFA, is comprehensive in its approach to leadership, does have content focused on agricultural safety and has typically focused less on health and biosecurity (Ricketts and Rudd, 2001).
Youth Agricultural Biosecurity Specific Education Research
Select international studies have focused on biosecurity education, including a study that gauged ninth year students for their biosecurity knowledge. Results showed that students lacked specific knowledge about unwanted plants, animals, and microorganisms (Ram et al., 2016). Additionally, when asked about unwanted exotic animals, students failed to identify larger mammalian unwanted animals such as racoons, deer, and pigs, but instead, students mentioned several zoo mammals (Ram et al., 2016). Additionally, a study of California public high school students found that youth were much more at risk for serious farm-work injuries and “Education should include inculcating safety-related attitudes and habits and focus on hazardous tasks” (McCurdy and Kwan, 2012).
A study in 2017 found there is a need for increased awareness and knowledge of zoonotic diseases for training/professional development of teachers and additionally a need for course work for agricultural science teachers (Holub, 2017). Research in agricultural and extension education has become to be a source of education among teachers and those in the industry. A study from 1997 indicated that “research in agricultural education is focused, but that focus has come about more by accident rather than through planned activities” (Radhakrishna and Xu, 1997). With respect to agricultural education, there seems to be a lack of focus on education research, nature of funding, review process, and personal interests for expanding education research in the different facets of agriculture (Radhakrishna and Xu, 1997). It seems that although there are programs, curricula, and standards being set for agricultural education with respect to agricultural security and biological safety, there is a gap in content based, classroom based, and focused research around the issue.
Materials and Methods
For this research, the states of California, Indiana, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin were identified for review of their educational standards, along with the AFNR Cluster Skills by The Council. This assessment utilized a content analysis of the agricultural health and safety academic standards for the five highly agriculturally involved states and one highly involved agricultural organization. These selected states did not use AFNR standards as part of their education, and instead, had their own agricultural education standards. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), the top 10 agricultural producing states in terms of profit include California, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and North Carolina (USDA, ERS, 2021). In addition to this metric, some states also not identified as “Top 10” were chosen for analysis not from their agricultural profit, but the importance of agriculture as an industry to the state. A limitation of this approach was that not every state was represented, however, as previously stated, many states utilize the AFNR standards, so this representation does constitute a large portion of the agricultural education academic standards being taught. The Council was not aware of how many states use AFNR standards, however, similar verbiage was recognized when evaluating individual state curricula standards.
All educational standards’ documents can be found online with the respective state boards of education and were publicly available at time of publication. The standards for each of the states and AFNR were reviewed by a group of university academic professionals for the purpose of academic assessments of state curricula in agricultural safety, and for developing curricula centered around agricultural biosecurity. For each of the states and AFNR, all the academic standards listed under their Agricultural Education sections were used. In some cases, there were sections that included Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources. The five states and AFNR organization reviewed have standards as current as 2018 and as old as 2013.
For record keeping, a typical standard consisted of the standard statement, along with the state standard identification number. Some standards had multiple parts or sub-standards within a standard. For example, the standard statement might read “0.1: Discuss the impact of disease on animal health,” with a sub-standard that mentions specific areas to animal disease and health (i.e., 0.1.1: List the impact of avian influenza). For the data generation, focus was given only to the overall standard and quantified, and did not focus on each of the subcategories or other standard areas. The data was grouped into an Agricultural Education, Agricultural Safety and/or Biosecurity standards.
In every case, each of the standard documents were reviewed standard-by-standard. One commonly used method to process and analyze the content was to search for frequency of terms or recurring themes within the text (De Vaus, 2013). In this case, some of the keywords searched for in the column Biosecurity Standards were: “biosecurity, disease, health, safety, PPE” and others. Plurals or variants of terms were treated as the same thing (i.e., diseases, machinery). Likewise, some of the keywords searched for the column ‘Agricultural Safety Standards’ were “health, safety, machine, livestock” and others, along with their plural variants.
Results and Discussion
The information gathered from this analysis is shown in the following figures. The total amount of state agricultural standards is pictured in gray and is consistently the majority of the standards. These standards were typically centered around knowledge of agricultural business management, animal science, plant science, agricultural machinery, or other related agricultural disciplines.
The AFNR standards comprised a total of 56 standards which focused on general agricultural academic development, reported in figure 1. Of these agricultural academic standards, 16 (20%) were indicative of biosecurity. Additionally, AFNR had seven standards that were concerned with agricultural safety and health, for a total of 23 standards addressed agricultural safety, health, and/or biosecurity. The agricultural safety standards seemed to focus on farm machinery and general safety concepts, much like the topics focused on in the HOOAs. The biosecurity standards had content regarding how a biosecurity threat could damage your AFNR business and with an emphasis on the personal and community repercussions of a lack of safety in the workplace. Additionally, there were a few standards that mentioned specific disease transmission methods and identification.
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| Figure 1. AFNR Agricultural Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available AFNR standards as described in the text. The figure text displays “value, percent” in the chart. |
The California Department of Education state standards comprised a total of 92 standards which focused on general agricultural academic development, reported in figure 2. Of these agricultural academic standards, 12 (11%) were indicative of biosecurity. Additionally, California had four standards that addressed agricultural safety and health, for a total of 16 state academic standards addressed agricultural safety, health, and/or biosecurity. The agricultural safety standards seemed to focus on machinery and safety concepts and more focus on green industry. These standards had content regarding more identification of pests and animal diseases. The California standards seemed to focus less on community aspects of biosecurity and more on personal management.
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| Figure 2. California Agricultural Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available California standards as described in the text. The figure text displays “value, percent” in the chart. |
The Indiana Department of Education state standards comprised a total of 191 standards which focused on general agricultural academic development, reported in figure 3. Of these agricultural academic standards, six (3%) were indicative of biosecurity. Additionally, Indiana had seven standards that were concerned with agricultural safety, for a total of 13 state academic standards that were concerned with agricultural safety, health, and/or biosecurity. The agricultural safety standards seemed to generally focus on machinery and some on livestock handlings. The biosecurity related standards had content regarding state standards of biosecurity and technologies that could be used to enhance biosafety. Recognition and identification of safety principles was also an aspect of the standard content.
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| Figure 3. Indiana Agricultural Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available Indiana standards as described in the text. The figure text displays “value, percent” in the chart. |
The Texas Department of Education state standards comprised a total of 271 standards that focused on general agricultural academic development, reported in figure 4. Of these agricultural academic standards, 23 (7%) were indicative of biosecurity. Additionally, Texas had 16 standards that addressed agricultural safety, for a total of 39 state academic standards that addressed agricultural safety, health, and/or biosecurity. The agricultural safety standards seemed to focus on general farm safety with machinery and livestock, again much like HOOAs. The biosecurity standards had content regarding both personal practices and demonstration of disease control. Their standards seemed to focus more on workplace safety aspects of biosecurity and less on identification or management.
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| Figure 4. Texas Agricultural Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available Texas standards as described in the text. The figure text displays “value, percent” in the chart. |
The Virginia Department of Education state standards comprised a total of 2,509 standards that were focused on general agricultural academic development, reported in figure 5. These standards, unlike the other states and AFNR, had repetitive language as an overall core standard for each category. Out of these agricultural academic standards, 43 (2%) were indicative of biosecurity. Additionally, Virginia had 21 standards that addressed agricultural safety, for a total of 64 state education standards that addressed agricultural safety, health, and/or biosecurity. The Virginia Department of Education state standards were not structured like other states, which led to such a high number of overall agricultural standards. Where most states had categories and subcategories (which were not considered in this study), there were no subcategories in Virginia’s agricultural education standards. The agricultural safety standards seemed to focus on safety as more of a ‘safe environment’ than specific hazards. The biosecurity standards had repetitive content with other agricultural disciplines, for example “demonstrating innovation and problem solving.” The content more specific to biosecurity did touch on biosecurity procedures and internal/external measures to protect against threats.
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| Figure 5. Virginia Agricultural Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available Virginia standards as described in the text. The figure text displays “Value, Percent” in the chart. |
The Wisconsin Department of Education state standards comprised a total of 30 standards that are focused on general agricultural academic development, reported in figure 6. Out of these agricultural academic standards, eight (20%) were indicative of biosecurity. Additionally, Wisconsin had one standard that addressed agricultural safety, for a total of nine state education standards that addressed agricultural safety, health, and/or biosecurity. The agricultural safety standard was very general and covered general farm safety as it is standard. The biosecurity standards had content regarding workplace procedures and understanding the importance of biosecurity. Their standards focused less on the community connection, and more on the on-site identification and procedures.
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| Figure 6. Wisconsin Agricultural Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available Wisconsin standards as described in the text. The figure text displays “Value, Percent” in the chart. |
Viewing these standards from a percentage base also provides insight into biosecurity standards, separate from Agricultural Safety.Figure 7 shows the percent of overall agricultural academic standards that addressed biosecurity. Virginia and Indiana had the lowest percent of standards that pertain to biosecurity (1-3%) and AFNR and Wisconsin had the highest percent of standards that pertain to biosecurity (~20%).
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| Figure 7. Distribution of Biosecurity Standards. This figure is an accumulation of data, gathered from the publicly available standards as described in the text. The series represented are the standards from every state and AFNR presented in this article, as a percentage. |
These previous figures represent a varying number of standards that pertain to agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity. Some of the main safety and health content areas seem to be machinery and livestock handling, where the biosecurity content areas included workplace identification, equipment handling, community awareness, and safety principles. As some of these topic areas are important to both agricultural security and biosecurity, standards could better reflect the biosecurity threats that a community could face or how a farm could be hindered with a lack of appropriate biosecurity. The financial consequences of poor biosecurity and public health procedures is an area of education standards that could be greatly developed. Additionally, numerous standards focused on the threats around equipment and facilities to create a safe environment and increase biosecurity. One practice not mentioned in any of these standards was understanding quarantining practices for new or sick animals. There were many standards which referenced teaching “general biosecurity best practices,” but this would be under the interpretation of the teacher and is less structured in terms of specifying the best practices to teach.
The analysis of these standards and programs helped identify inconsistencies in agricultural safety and health education. This knowledge aided in the curricula design project, led by Purdue’s Agricultural Safety and Health Program to enhance the Gearing Up for Safety youth curricula. Gearing Up For Safety continues to create high quality lessons covering a wide range of agriculture safety topics, including a lesson on agricultural biosecurity. As the content and focus of these programs and standards deviate slightly from each state and organization, it’s important to note the importance in content delivery. There remains a need for effective competency-based agricultural safety and health youth training programs that could be administered regarding these standards and that offer detailed information for educational instructors.
Conclusion
The number of educational standards devoted to agricultural safety and health varied from state to state with little consistency. Even in some of the most agriculturally involved states there were noticeable differences in the amount of content and the topics covered. The agricultural safety standards did constitute around 20% of the overall standards in some states (including the AFNR standards and Wisconsin), however, in Indiana and Virginia the overall agricultural safety standards were around 1-3%. The amount of overall state agricultural standards as reported in figures 1-6 greatly overshadows the standards focused on agricultural health and safety, and even more so the biosecurity standards. This is not to say that safety standards are not of concern to the state or the institution, but there is less direct verbiage that specifically mentions safety, or biosecurity in agriculture.
Research from public groups, along with a brief analysis of highly involved agricultural states demonstrates that there are low quantities of academic standards focused on overall agricultural health and safety. Additionally, the research has shown little consistency with some states directing educational standards to agricultural safety, health, or biosecurity. These standards are critical to delivery of curricula for use in various agricultural programing. In some schools, that teach to the state standards, if the topic is not clearly included in the standards, it is not taught or tough only superficially. Agricultural safety, health, and biosecurity skills for youth remain essential components of increasing public safety and public health, especially for those employed or living on a farm or ranch. High school agricultural teachers and extension professionals are viewed as key players to provide educational opportunities to youth populations on agricultural safety and health issues. However, research is needed to understand what specific concerns there are in agriculture safety, academic teaching, and curriculum development.
Specific to biosecurity, varying areas of concern within agricultural education standards were identified. Although this continues to be an area of growth and development for research, there is a gap in knowledge awareness and more research is needed to address these gaps. Many of the standards used in the United States come from organizations directly involved with youth in agriculture; however, there remains a need for quality, and consistent, agricultural safety and health youth curricula to deliver these standards, and even more so for biosecurity.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to contributors who have aided on collecting the standard data and reviewing the material. Special thanks to the team and others at Purdue University for their time in categorizing the standards and finding the relevant information. Support was provided though funding from USDA/NIFA-award No 217-41521-27066 and 2021-67037-3375.
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