The future of agriculture is in great hands with leaders like Jahqethea Johnson. An intelligent, up-and-coming leader in the agriculture industry, Jahqethea is leaving her mark through several organizations in which she holds leadership positions, her career, and continued education. Because of these organizations, she is driven every day by thoughts of what more she can do. Not just for her global community, but more specifically for people of color.
Currently, she is an Agricultural Statistician with USDA-NASS in the Northern Plains Region (NPR), an Agricultural Economics Graduate Student at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), MANRRS National Graduate Student President, and a 2023 Farm Foundation Agricultural Scholar.
She inspires us just by reading those titles.
Eight years in the agricultural industry later, she has a long list of current and past accomplishments. But before we dive into her many titles, let’s start where her journey began.
In high school, she joined her Urban FFA Chapter in Columbus, Ohio. From there she conducted research in the BioScience Technology field for two years through FFA. That led to a job in a plant pathology lab at the University of Kentucky after starting her undergraduate career there in 2017.
A Leader in MANRRS
While in college, she joined Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences and has been a member ever since.
MANRRS is the reason she is in the industry today. And the organization truly restored her understanding of working for passion and nothing other than that.
That’s why when she moved to Lincoln to attend graduate school, reestablishing the MANRRS chapter at the University of Nebraska was a top priority. When she arrived at UNL, she quickly inquired about their MANRRS chapter.
MANRRS was chartered at UNL in 1996 but unfortunately had not been active for several years. In 2022, a group of students decided they wanted to make the chapter active again. Jahqethea soon followed as a leader and strategist behind bringing the chapter back. She has established a relationship with the undergraduate executive leadership. She provides mentorship and support as they navigate and revise UNL MANRRS.
A FarmHer in Agricultural Economics
In fact, her involvement in MANRRS led her to change her major to Agricultural Economics.
As a USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Agricultural Statistician (Stat) in the Northern Plains Region, she is assigned to commodities and programs. Their programs include weekly, monthly, and quarterly surveys. The surveys are then created and distributed to producers, ranchers, and agribusinesses to collect data.
When the data is collected they are responsible for analyzing the data (checking for consistency, verifying data reported, reviewing outliers, and providing statistical reasoning for our observations during analysis). Once data is analyzed they create publishable reports on their webpage.
Another honor, Jahqethea has earned and helped her in her career is the 2023 Farm Foundation Agricultural Scholar. Through the program, she is provided opportunities to actively engage in government and agricultural policy work with a series of learning experiences, focused on gaining a deeper understanding of production agriculture, agribusiness, and government.
The program is aimed to inspire and train the next generation of agricultural economists in agricultural policy, commodity market analysis, agricultural finance, and other applied fields of economics.
Leading One Day at a Time
From the positions she holds to the life she lives, Jahqethea is the definition of a leader. She is a role model to the future generations of FarmHers and proves you do not need to be a part of production agriculture to make changes in the industry. Thank you, Jahqethea for paving the way for other FarmHers.
Everybody Eats
Find More Stories at Everybody Eats
We all eat, and that is why farming will always matter. Everybody Eats is where the stories of food and farming intersect.
These stories told through my FarmHer lens connect us to our food and more importantly, the people behind it.
Nationwide’s Everybody Eats is a collection of stories of those who protect our rural communities, who grow our food with extraordinary care, and who provide support, education, and assistance to make sure Everybody Eats.
