An 18-year-old student featured in Tuesday’s newspaper exemplifies the type of leadership needed among youths in Pennsylvania.

Jillian Ranko, a senior at Butler Area Senior High School, recently ascended from being a princess to a president.

Ranko doesn’t live on a farm, but raises alpacas at Renfrew’s Asgard Acres Alpaca Farm. She was named the Pennsylvania Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association’s Alpaca Princess for 2019, and has since become president of the state’s 4-H State Council.

One of her top duties as the council’s president will be to promote 4-H activities. We wish her success — not only because it’s great to see a local student earn such an honor, but also because promoting agriculture programs among the state’s youths couldn’t come at a better time.

As we mentioned recently on this page while discussing the importance of the county’s farm tour engaging young people, agriculture is the state’s top industry. It employs more than 500,000 people, making up an estimated 18 percent of the state’s economy.

But recent studies have shown the agriculture industry is failing to replace its aging workforce. A workforce deficit of nearly 75,000 people is expected over the next decade.

More than 50 percent of the industry’s workers were in their early 20s to mid-30s two decades ago, but that number has dropped to 40 percent.

So, programs like 4-H are important for promoting an interest in agriculture. Studies show it has other important benefits.

A 2014 study by Tufts University’s Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development found that students in 4-H improved their confidence and character through participation in a club. It also found that 4-H participants were four times more likely to make contributions to their communities than students in other after-school activities. Young women especially benefited from 4-H programs, the study found.

On its website, 4-H touts a number of areas in which its participants engage — such as computer science, cooking and civic engagement — and values that are instilled — including independence, resilience and compassion.

“A lot of people don’t know about it, so one of our main goals is to get the word out about 4-H,” Ranko said.

We think that’s a great mission. May her efforts draw the next generation of leaders in agriculture and all of the other areas that 4-H promotes.