🎉January 2025 special -- Use promo code BELTWIDE to get 20 percent off the Cotton Program🎉
Getting Grounded in Cotton has never been this easy!
If you work in the cotton industry, understanding how the crop is grown is a critical piece of building customer and colleague trust. Grounded in Ag has the courses to take you from day one in agriculture to a place of deep understanding and critical thinking.
Learn about America's favorite fiber and the people who grow it, the challenges they face and so much more.
Learning from the Experts
One of the pieces that drives the impact of Grounded in Ag is that all of the courses and lessons include perspectives from people in the industry who live this day in and day out.
For cotton, decades of experience are brought to bear, but input from people who have just joined agriculture throughout the development and publishing process insures the material is understandable and accessible. The full list of the experts helping with Ag 101 and the Focus on Crops is on our website and our cotton experts include:
A Systems Approach to Building Cotton Knowledge
Our courses are designed to meet people where they are and begin developing the depth of knowledge, vocabulary, and understanding of agriculture that can be elusive to build without focused, structured efforts. For people seeking to understand cotton, there is a three-course program.
Ag 101 Sets the Foundation
The Ag 101 course provides multiple sources across the US to provide you with the basic building blocks you need to understand agriculture, but more than that, we give you the context you need to put that information to work right away. The video modules in this course are designed to help you understand:
- Farmers, the way they set up their businesses, the changes they see happening, and their communities
- The industry and business as it works in the real world, with topics including cash flow, mental health, equipment, and farming organizations
- Sustainability from multiple perspectives discussing varying approaches to soil, water, carbon & climate, pollinators & wildlife, and people.
(more than 6 hours running time)
Depth in Crops Comes Via Focus
Once you have the foundational knowledge of agriculture, we begin layering in depth. This course covers growing crops for food, feed, fiber, and fuel. Lessons come from farmers and experts who have spent years, many even decades in their fields or fields of study.
Topics range from decisions about what crops to plant and how varieties/hybrids are chosen to some of the seasonal activities undertaken. Experts in weed science, entomology, and plant pathology also provide in-depth lessons on these critical challenges farmers face in the field and how the ways those challenges can be addressed.
(more than 2 hours running time)
Deep Dive into Cotton
While there can be similarities among crops, cotton is unique in many ways, and it's geographic focus means it is new to many. This course provides a depth of information that significantly reduces the learning curve. Included in this course are lessons about:
- Overview of a Year in Cotton
- Regional Production
- Mid-South / Delta
- Lubbock / High Plains
- California Pima
- In-Depth Discussion of Physiology & Crop Challenges
- Must Know Facts & Trivia
- Essential Resources
- Things Easily Misunderstood
(approx 2.5 hours running time)
Learn About Crops & Livestock
Grounded in Ag has programming that includes the basics on livestock, and we are currently building out courses on other crops and commodities. Each commodity course takes a similar approach, moving from basics to greater depth and insight, and the full package (more than 20 hours) comes at a reasonable rate. The full slate of courses include:
New to ag or taking on a new role in cotton? This program is for you!
While most Americans are familiar with cotton as a fabric, having a real understanding of the crop can be hard to develop. And yet that understanding is crucial for many jobs -- it makes it easier to develop solid strategies and enables client and customer relationships to be serviced in ways that build trust. Grounded in Ag makes it easier than ever to develop that understanding by letting people learn about cotton from wherever you are.
