Tell me a little bit more about your career and, and yeah, I'd love to just hear a little bit more about kind of the arc of, of your experience in the horticulture space.

yeah so i don't have any experience directly with plants and horticulture my background is in mental health and youth development i would have never pictured myself working in this industry and so seed your future is the national organization that promotes horticulture as a career path to students teachers parents we want to make sure that people understand the careers that are in the industry working directly with the plans, but also graphic design, marketing, logistics, the cold supply chain in the floor industry.

We want people just to know what horticulture is.

Most people have heard of the word agriculture.

They know what environmental Justice Studies means, but we don't hear the word horticulture often in school, in career conversations.

And so we were created by three horticulture professors, the American Society for Horticultural Science, Ball Horticultural Company, and Loma Gardens.

they came together and did some research to understand what kind of organization was needed to truly support the horticulture industry workforce in the next five to 10 years where they were at that point.

And what have you figured out about the messaging specifically? So how have you changed the way that you're communicating these careers to consumers? you know, the whole audience, the students, parents, teachers, other folks in the industry, like what have been some of the learnings there?

Well, I think for starters, what are green careers and why are they important within the broader scope of the agriculture industry, Jasmine?

When people hear the word Green Career Weeks, it can span so much.

Right.

But we're specifically talking about horticulture.

And what is horticulture? Most people have never heard the word before.

Everyone knows agriculture.

Everyone knows environment.

What about green careers? Are they on the upswing right now in the industry?