From Pageant Scholarships to Potato Fields to Ag Marketing

Marcia Cripps funded her agronomy degrees with Miss America pageant scholarships, then spent years as a sales agronomist in California before leaving the role over personal safety concerns. She's since built two careers at once: in-house potato agronomist for a large Michigan operation, and co-founder of an ag marketing agency built to explain agriculture to people who've never set foot on a farm. The gap she's working on isn't inside agriculture. It's the space between the industry and everyone who isn't in it. What's Inside - Why Marcia left retail input sales, and what she'd tell a young woman considering that same path today - What it actually means to run product trials, manage soil health, and adjust seed spacing for a large Michigan potato operation - Why chip processors demanding smaller, more circular potatoes changes an agronomist's spacing decisions in the field - How AgFluence uses platforms like TikTok to reach people who've never farmed, not just people already in the industry - What her grandfather's 1942 photo, a team of horses instead of a tractor, tells her about how fast agriculture actually changes - Why she's now teaching herself software development to become a digital agronomistConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.