Photos by Jean Schlegel / Times-Record
Sarah Goebel of Germany, from left, stands with Marcy and Greg Svenningsen on their rural Valley City farm Thursday with a tractor Goebel has driven while learning how to be a farmer. The Svenningsens host exchange trainees who learn how to farm through the Communicating for Agriculture Education Program. Below: The Svenningsens explain aspects of work on their farm to Communicating for Agriculture participants who visited their farm on Thursday.

By Jean Schlegel 

Life on a farm can be challenging – especially if you are unfamiliar with how things are done on a modern farm in America.
But for 23-year-old Sarah Goebel of Germany, it’s a big adventure. Her village – Heiligenrode, Hessen –  is near Kassel, in central Germany.
For one year, Goebel will live with Marcy and Greg Svenningsen of rural Valley City. She has been here for six weeks.
“I wanted to learn more about your country,” she says, “and I want to learn more about agriculture and the culture (in America).”
“I want to be a farmer,” she adds.
Goebel came to the Svenningsens through the Communicating for Agriculture Education Program. The program has been around since 1981, and in 1985 it started an exchange program to help young people learn about agriculture, which they use toward future education or job experience.
Since the Svenningsens began hosting foreign farmers in 1995, they have had about 30 trainees, both men and women. Many of the young trainees have been inexperienced, Greg said.
But he especially remembers a woman from Switzerland.
“She was here two weeks and she was running the farm,” he said with a huge grin. “Attitude is everything.”

Big visit
On Thursday, the Svenningsens hosted a busload of 30 Communicating for Agriculture participants from 19 countries. They were accompanied by Communicating for Agriculture coordinators from Minnesota.
The program was holding an international conference in which they stop at places where there are program trainees. After Valley City, they were going to California.

For full story, see the 10/23/2009 edition of the Valley City Times-Record.