Initiatives

The 2025 AFNR Blueprint is based on hundreds of stakeholders sharing their views and expertise during six Listening Sessions convened around the state in October 2017. It also includes the work of 37 AFNR education experts who reviewed and elaborated on the results of the Listening Sessions. Listening Session participants and committee members described an imagined future for AFNR education in 2025, developed goals from those imagined futures, recommended strategies that could achieve those goals, and suggested indicators that would measure how well goals were achieved. Listening Session participants and Blueprint Committee members focused on these five sectors of AFNR education:

• Agricultural Literacy
• School-Based AFNR Education
• Post-Secondary AFNR Education
• Teacher Preparation in Agricultural Education
• Farm Business Management (FBM)

Their vision resulted in the following four broad goals for AFNR education:

1. Increasing the quality of instruction – including instructional strategies or methods and content – to prepare strong graduates from diverse backgrounds for current and future careers in AFNR production, education, business, and science
2. Increasing numbers and types of students, graduates, teachers, and community members involved in AFNR education to meet present and future needs
3. Making accurate and complete information widely available to students, parents, school administrators, teachers, and employers to improve understanding of AFNR systems
4. Ensuring AFNR education programs at all levels are fully supported locally and statewide

Learn more about the goals, strategies and indicators of success laid out in 2025 Minnesota Agriculture, Food and Natural Resource (AFNR) Education Blueprint (PDF).