Jess Tilley-Moore: An ag degree alone doesn’t make you a farmer

The modern world has started convincing people you need a degree before you’re allowed to start a career.

That you need permission. That you need to study farming before you can actually farm.

But farming isn’t something you learn properly from a classroom.

See also:  Georgina Mitchell-Jones – we should cut ourselves a bit of slack

About the author

Jess Tilley-Moore

Jess Tilley-Moore, 20, works at Lower Drayton Farm, an award-winning farm park attraction in Staffordshire, where she is an educational leader and helps manage the livestock. She also has her own small flock of pedigree sheep.

Read more articles by Jess Tilley-Moore

You learn it stood in a dairy parlour at 4am, when it’s dark, freezing, and the cows are in a bad mood and so are you.

You learn it when one decides to kick the cluster off for the fifth time and you question all your life choices.

You learn it driving a tractor, trying to convince yourself you know what you’re doing while praying you’re in the right field.

You learn it from the people who’ve done it for 40 years and can reverse a trailer first time, while you’re still trying not to take out a gatepost.

I’m learning it in a lambing shed. Alone. At night. Wondering if I’m making the right decision, then doing it anyway because there isn’t anyone else to do it.

Although I didn’t grow up on a farm, I have my own small pedigree flock of Greyface Dartmoor sheep, the Fern Flock.

They’re my responsibility. My problem when it goes wrong. These sheep haven’t asked to see my certificates yet.

No degree prepares you for the panic of your first difficult lambing, or the excitement of your first lamb hitting the ground.

Nor does it prepare you for the pride that comes from something succeeding because of your decisions.

My education came from doing – from getting things wrong and asking lots of questions, sometimes stupid ones.

From turning up, even when I was running on biscuits and no sleep.

Agricultural degrees can be brilliant and open doors, but they don’t make you a farmer.

I’ve met people with degrees who are incredible, and people with no qualifications who know more than any textbook ever could.

Because farming isn’t about the theory, it’s about whether you care enough to learn in reality. 

Agriculture doesn’t need more people who’ve only studied it – it needs more people willing to live it.