45-thousand young adults make up the student body at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Seven-and-a-half percent of that total have enrolled in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences or ACES. Most of those students, like senior Jennifer Aguilar (AG-you-lar) actually come from urban or suburban parts of Illinois;
Aguilar is from Chicago, but her classmate Ben Kimes grew up 100 miles or so northwest in Pecatonica, population 22-hundred. They both enrolled in an agricultural policy and leadership class at the U-of-I and spent their spring break in Washington, D-C discussing issues like food stamps, or as the federal government calls it, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP:
Kimes, Aguilar and their classmates have also spent time down on the farm. The U-of-I course instructor estimates only two-in-10 students enrolled in the College of ACES has actually been on a farm or have met an Illinois farmer.
