Guest Column: UF/IFAS Power of Plants

UF/IFAS and FNGLA share an abiding belief in the power of plants. We also share a belief that belief is not enough. We need to act. And to act we need evidence.

Can plants reduce recidivism? If we train inmates in green industry best management practices, the thinking goes, they will be more employable when released and therefore less likely to return to prison.

Emeritus Taylor County Extension Director Clay Olson is among those putting this question to the test. He spends Friday nights visiting correctional facilities in Madison, Hamilton, Columbia, Levy, and Alachua counties to teach about water quality, fertilizer and pest management.

It's the same rigorous curriculum that working green industry professionals get when they enroll in GI-BMP classes at their county Extension office. During his classes with inmates, Olson makes a simple request: When you get out, keep in touch.

He’s asking them to enlist as research subjects. By tracking what happens with these inmates when they’re no longer inmates, we can measure horticulture’s effectiveness in crime prevention.

Even before we have conclusive results, we’ve attracted interest from FNGLA.

FNGLA Director of Certification and Professional Development Merry Mott is interested in partnering with UF/IFAS to equip Olson and others with FNGLA’s Certified Horticulture Professional curriculum and books to students of Olson and other teachers and trainers.

And Mott’s offer to assist in job placement for released inmates could multiply the training’s impact.

We at UF/IFAS are in the human potential business – not just for 18-to-22-year-olds on campus. Extension gives us a mechanism to look for and develop human potential in communities, in greenhouses, and yes, in prisons.

The beauty of our work that seeks to unlock potential behind bars is that it also helps me tap other unrealized potential – emeriti faculty. We have talented people who realized their potential in decades of achievement as UF/IFAS faculty.

I’d like to engage more of our retirees, to have more Clay Olsons. To tap the potential that still exists in septuagenarians. To take advantage of the knowledge and skills honed over decades that we too often lose access to when someone retires.

You can see firsthand how much retirees have to offer every time you interact with Ed Gilman or Tom Yeager.

There are many reasons I value the long and strong relationship we have with FNGLA. One of them is that you help us develop potential. Sometimes that’s by mentoring our students. In other instances, it’s supporting industry-relevant research.

I have high hopes that Mott and FNGLA can find a way to extend the reach and impact of our work in prisons in a way that better helps build a talent pipeline for the green industry. If that way involves more retirees like Clay Olson, so much the better.

Potential is everywhere you look. Let’s keep looking together.

J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).