Watsonville High students Ismael Rosales (from right), Arnold Preceado and Jorge Ponce examine a healthy crop of artichokes they've been growing in the Watsonville High Agriculture Academy intern program.

Jorge Ponce walked into a field of artichoke plants Tuesday at Watsonville High School and disappeared.

Ponce, a participant in the Watsonville High Agricultural Academy internship program, helped grow the artichokes as part of a project, and all his watering and weeding has been rewarded with a thick forest of 7-foot-tall plants.

“I thought they were going to be short like this one,” said the 16-year-old Ponce, gesturing to a smaller plant on the outside of the field after emerging from the center of the plot, “but they got real tall.”

Ponce, however, isn’t just growing artichokes. He has taken skills that he has learned in the internship program, and become a burgeoning businessman. Using a flier he created as an advertising tool, he has made about $300 selling the organic artichokes — 75 cents for small ones and $1.50 for big ones — with the Pajaro Valley Unified School District and Watsonville High teachers being his best customers.

“That’s really awesome to see him take that on,” said Jenny Hansen, Farm to School program coordinator with Community Alliance With Family Farmers, which started the program with grant funds from the Stewardship Council, one of the largest youth investment foundations in California. “That’s great.”

Ponce is one of six students, all boys, who are taking part in the eight-week program, which will wrap up its first year Thursday. The internship program has met once a week for two hours, with students learning basic agriculture skills and about jobs in the field, while getting an idea of what it’s like to run a farm, Hansen said.

“Seeing all these things really gives them a sense of empowerment,” she said. “I think they learn a lot of leadership skills from it.”

There is also an opportunity during the summer for students to participate in an internship at the Triple M Ranch in Las Lomas, home to the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association’s Farm Training and Research Center.

“Although we are only in the first phase of our program and have only been on campus for a matter of months, we have seen inspired students take initiative in projects that suggest the program will have long-lasting impacts,” Farm to School program director Ildi Carlisle-Cummins said in a press release.

Carlisle-Cummins said an example of the students taking initiative was in the program’s Artichoke Harvest Day, in which students harvested artichokes from the school garden and promoted a lunch-time tasting event.

Hansen said the students primarily have learned skills it would take to run a family farm. These range from when to water to public speaking to media relations.

“You have to be a really well-rounded person to survive in this profession,” she said.

The program will need to continue to get grant money to continue, said Hansen, who added that she would like to expand the number of students to 10, and see girls get involved. She also said she would like to add more components to the program.

Watsonville High principal Murry Schekman, who noted that the school had just received a California Partnership Academy grant that would help support the agriculture program, said he wants to see students learn about some of the more high-level jobs in agriculture. He said his interest was “in good jobs” for graduates, citing food safety and agricultural technology as intriguing areas.

“We’re trying to ramp up the expectations,” he said. “Too many kids think agriculture is just farming and operating a tractor.”

“The real future in agriculture is going to be in technology and agribusiness,” said Watsonville High agriculture instructor Lowell Hurst.

Ismael “Milo” Rosales is another student in the internship program, and is using a plan similar to Ponce’s, except instead of artichokes, he’s growing tomatoes and jalapeños to sell to teachers and family members.

“I don’t want to be like a ‘farmer,’ farmer,” Rosales said, who indicated he was interested in being a mechanic, “but I want to do something in my life with agriculture.”

Ponce, meanwhile, said he was interested in both farming and criminal justice.

“Farming is hands-on stuff,” he said, minutes before walking back into the forest of the plants to clip off some artichokes.

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*Photos by Tarmo Hannula*

(Published in 5/28/08 edition)

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