Bridging the Skills Gap: Digital Badges for Employability in Agriculture

More than a decade ago, the National Research Council (2009) challenged agricultural education professionals to transform how they prepare students for the evolving global food and agricultural enterprise. A critical component of this preparation is durable skills, as they allow employees to adapt and relearn job-specific skills as industry demands evolve (D2L, 2019). However, research suggests durable skills are “more difficult to train for and are not easily assessed” (D2L, 2019, p. 4). In 2020, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) released a report on workforce development skills and attributes for natural resources and agricultural workers (Crawford & Fink, 2020). Critical employability skills (a.k.a., durable skills) included competencies such as communication, the ability to work in teams, and adaptability. Agricultural employers are increasingly in need of a workforce that effectively engages in collaborative leadership (Colclasure, 2020; Donaldson et al., 2023; Kaki et al., 2022; Parrella et al., 2024; Watson et al., 2019). In response to this challenge, the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL) project has created a digital learning badge system for helping students develop and claim the durable skills needed for dynamic careers in agriculture.