What Will It Take to Prepare the Next Generation to Lead Agriculture?

| Podcast   For this episode of Landowner Insider, I sat down with Dr. Frank Owsley, interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Tarleton State University, my alma mater. We talked about how fast that college has grown, what AI actually means for agriculture education, and why understanding your numbers matters as much as understanding your cattle.

A College That’s Outgrown Its “Best Kept Secret” Reputation

When Dr. Owsley got to Tarleton, he described it as one of the best-kept secrets in the country, a school full of quietly successful alumni nobody outside Stephenville seemed to know about. That’s changed fast. Animal science alone has grown from about 450 students in 2015 to over 1,300 today, now roughly half the entire College of Ag and Natural Resources. The college’s newest program, zoo animal management, didn’t exist two years ago and already has around 100 students.   Dr. Owsley pointed to a moment at a national cattle industry trade show in 2016 that stuck with him: wearing a small Tarleton lapel pin, he had 60 to 70 alumni, corporate executives, ranch managers, ranch hands, come up and thank him just for representing the school. That’s part of why we’ve started an alumni chapter for the College of Ag and Natural Resources this year, which I’m proud to be involved with.

The AI Question Nobody in Agriculture Can Ignore

We spent real time on artificial intelligence, and Dr. Owsley’s take was more grounded than most conversations on this topic. His view: AI isn’t really artificial at all, it’s a faster way to search and aggregate what humans already know. That’s useful, but it doesn’t replace the ability to think critically, reason through a problem, and recognize when an answer doesn’t actually make sense for your operation.   He gave a pointed example from his own classroom. When students ask an AI tool how to feed pigs on pasture, it responds with generic advice about maintaining high-quality pasture, technically reasonable-sounding, but wrong, because pigs don’t grow well on grass at all. The tool doesn’t know that. A student who hasn’t learned to question the answer won’t catch it either.

Know Your Numbers

Some of the most useful material in this conversation had nothing to do with classrooms. Dr. Owsley was blunt that too many people in agriculture don’t actually know their own costs. He described asking a rancher what his hay was worth per roll and getting a blank stare. Depreciation on a cow, the fact that she loses value every year even before you count feed and vet bills, is one of the most overlooked expenses in a cow-calf operation.   We also talked through the economics of grazing hay instead of baling it. Every time you start a tractor, your margin drops. Grazing cattle directly on standing forage instead of cutting, baling, hauling, and feeding it back cuts out several expensive steps and a good bit of waste. It’s a small mindset shift that can make a real difference in a ranch’s bottom line.

Hands-On Learning Still Wins

Dr. Owsley talked about the shift in where Tarleton’s students come from, more coming out of the Metroplex and Houston now, fewer straight off a family ranch. Interestingly, he’s found students without a farm or ranch background sometimes outperform those who grew up in it, simply because they haven’t picked up bad habits along the way. What matters more than background is whether a student comes in ready to challenge themselves, which is advice he gives to every incoming freshman: do something that scares you a little before you ever set foot in a classroom.

What Tarleton Has to Protect as It Grows

As the university pushes toward research-university status, Dr. Owsley was clear that growth can’t come at the expense of the things that make Tarleton what it is: a family atmosphere, a culture where students and faculty can have an honest conversation, and a level of individual attention that’s hard to find at a much larger school. Protecting that culture, in his view, is just as important as any enrollment number.

Watch the Full Episode

This article is based on my conversation with Dr. Frank Owsley of Tarleton State University’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources on Landowner Insider.   ▶ Watch on YouTube  

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Kendall Woods

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