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From London to Durban, Bangkok to Panama City, people in scientific and policy circles recognize ӣ����Ƶ as a global leader in plant research. Our city is home to world-renowned institutions like the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the Bayer Crop Science headquarters — institutions whose research has a global impact on food security, human health and environmental resilience.

And yet, here at home, that legacy is surprisingly invisible. Friends in North City or neighbors in Chesterfield are often surprised when I tell them that ӣ����Ƶ is a world capital for plant science. It leaves me wondering: how can our kids imagine futures in a field they’ve never heard of, especially one that’s growing in their own backyard?

That question is part of what inspired my team to partner with the ӣ����Ƶ County Library system on a summer STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) challenge. We wanted to connect families with the science happening in their communities, especially in neighborhoods that don’t always see themselves reflected in the science economy.

The idea was simple: Meet people where they are — at trusted locations like public libraries — offer hands-on science activities, and plant the seeds of possibility.

This year, though, that program won’t run because the funding that made it possible was eliminated. The National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supported our work, is now one of many federal investments in science education facing a cut and early termination of our grant.

As someone who’s spent my career trying to build stronger connections between plant science and the public, this loss hits hard. As a mother raising three children in ӣ����Ƶ, it hits even harder. I know how important early exposure to STEM can be — not just for individual kids, but for our region’s future workforce.

At the Danforth Center, our team used NSF AISL funding to build educational programs in public libraries to reach thousands of families, many of whom had never set foot in a science center, museum or lab.

These sessions didn’t just teach families about plants; they connected STEM to everyday life and careers. These weren’t just fun science demos. They were entry points into a growing field — AgTech — that’s critical to Missouri’s economic future.

Agriculture already accounts for nearly 400,000 jobs and over $88 billion in annual economic impact in Missouri. But across the region, we’re hearing the same thing from employers and innovation hubs like BioSTL and the Taylor Geospatial Institute: There aren’t enough local workers with the skills to meet the demand.

If we want a strong pipeline of talent into this growing sector, we can’t afford to cut science education — especially not programs that are helping more communities access opportunities they’ve previously had limited access to.

Losing programs like ours doesn’t just mean fewer STEM opportunities this summer. It means fewer people entering science careers ten years from now. Fewer data scientists, fewer biotechnologists, fewer agricultural engineers. The kinds of jobs that power our local economy and help feed the world.

If we’re serious about building a stronger, more resilient AgTech workforce, we need to invest in the entire pipeline. That starts not in the boardroom or at the research bench, but in our libraries, classrooms and afterschool programs.

Tell our officials in Washington to fund science research and education. These programs are not a luxury, they are the infrastructure that underpins our economy, our health, our environment, and our kids’ futures. The world already knows what ӣ����Ƶ has to offer. It’s time we made sure our kids do, too.