In UD’s agriculture and natural resources major, Kaitlyn Bradley combined her skill of connecting with farmers with pursuits in the livestock industry.

Cultivating a career in agriculture

Article by Nya Wynn Photos courtesy of Kaitlyn Bradley May 22, 2025

Agriculture and natural resources major Kaitlyn Bradley shapes her future through internships and research

Kaitlyn Bradley, a senior agriculture and natural resources major at the University of Delaware, found that her hands-on experiences on farms and in the livestock industry come together with economics to bridge the gap between agricultural sales and what farmers actually need.

Throughout the past three years as an undergraduate, Bradley had no shortage of farm experience.

As a first-year student, she worked on a Smithfield hog farm in North Carolina, learning about farrowing and breeding departments and shadowing professionals in the industry.

“We worked alongside everyone that worked there full-time, learning all of the ins and outs of the operation,” Bradley said. “We also saw different sections of the operation every Friday, like the feed mills and veterinary services.”

The following summer she interned with Mountaire Farms, a prominent name in Delmarva’s poultry industry. Bradley worked on the live operations side of the business shadowing flock supervisors and conducting an independent project collecting data on chicken growers.

“The growers are the ones that actually have the chicken houses themselves, while Mountaire is the integrator — they are like the support to growers,” Bradley said. “I was collecting information from the growers to give the company an analysis of good things that the company is doing and areas where the company could improve from the growers’ perspectives.”

Over the summer following her first year at UD, Bradley worked at a Smithfield hog farm in North Carolina, where she learned everything about livestock operations and management.

Through these experiences, Bradley developed a keen skill in talking to farmers and understanding what they really needed out of external partners, from a sales perspective. This led her to Strategic Selling and Buyer Communication (APEC 345) with faculty member Kelly Davidson.

“Students get hands-on practice learning how to sell products, specifically in the food and agriculture industry, through shadowing experiences of sales professionals and by building a written plan and a video demonstration where they sell a product for the company they had their shadowing experience in,” said Davidson, an assistant professor of applied economics.

While in the class, Bradley realized that the connections she already had with farmers across the Delmarva area could help with her economic pursuits.

“Dr. Davidson and the APEC 345 class had a big impact on me,” Bradley said. “And then through that, I also got the opportunity to do research with her over the winter, which was really fun and interesting.”

Her research with Davidson perfectly blended her ability to connect with farmers and her knowledge of agricultural sales techniques in order to understand what farmers needed from the industry.

Bradley and her fellow undergraduate researchers on the Davidson’s project traveled to the Keystone Farm Show in York, Pennsylvania, and the New York Farm Show in Syracuse, New York, to collect data from farmers.

“We recruited participants and collected as much data as possible about their experiences in the industry,” Bradley said. “It was really cool because I made a lot of connections.”

The survey helped with Davidson’s research on Pasture, Rangeland and Forage (PRF) Insurance, a new type of federal crop insurance for livestock farmers.

Bradley also attained an internship with Mountaire Farms, working on its poultry operations team as well as researching how the company can benefit the farmers raising chickens.

“We’re looking at farmer behavior and decision making around enrolling in PRF insurance because it is more complex than other crop insurance programs,” Davidson said. “We’re interested in how access to different information shapes behavior and enrollment decisions.”

In addition to that project, Bradley was also helping with another one of Davidson’s projects on how they could recruit more farmers for agricultural economic surveys and experiments by collecting data on the number of rejections they got at farm shows and quantifying a response rate for in person data collection.

Davidson said Bradley’s previous internship experiences made her an ideal candidate for this research project because livestock experience can inform policy and how farmers are directly impacted by these policies.

“We study inputs and outputs just like traditional economics classes, but Kaitlyn is able to apply those concepts to feed rations or cattle growth, inputs and outputs specific to livestock production,” Davidson said. “There is real value that can be added to agricultural economics research, from having agricultural industry experience, because it allows you to think about the applications and issues from another perspective, and Kaitlyn has that.”

Although unsure of where she wants her career to go specifically, Bradley is trying to gain as much experience as possible, as well as serving as livestock chair for the Animal Science Club, coordinating different livestock events for members to attend. She is also a member of Sigma Alpha, a professional agricultural sorority on campus.

“There are a variety of different roles that you can go into within a livestock production company — the feeding side, the live operation side, and then if we’re talking poultry or swine, you have the processing plant side,” Bradley said. “I lean more toward the live operation side, working with the animals themselves, but also connecting with farmers and what their experiences are.”