Internship and education propel Blackfoot native toward farming future

Tucker Hansen built a foundation in agriculture at a young age working potato harvest. Now, having completed an internship with J.R. Simplot Co. and earned a degree in crop science and management from University of Idaho, he's ready to make agriculture his career.

Hansen ’25, of Blackfoot, will soon start a job working for his parents’ Blackfoot trucking business, Hansen Trucking. However, within the next few years, he anticipates putting his agricultural education and experience to use as an agronomist, a field representative or manager with his fiancée’s family farm. His long-term goal is to own his own family farm.

Also earning a minor in plant protection, Hansen was among 40 undergraduates within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) to graduate in fall 2025.

Hansen wasn’t raised on a farm, but he worked for his great-grandfather’s potato farm and family friends’ farms.

“That was the most fun time,” Hansen said. “All through school, we got harvest break off, and that was your two weeks to go work harvest to help the farmers.”

The upbringing cultivated a deep interest in potatoes and farming. College is where he bridged the gap between applied and scientific methodologies of farming.

“You see the applied side of things when you’re farming; you don’t really see the scientific side of things,” he said. “Coming to U of I, you get a better understanding of how the potato actually works.”

Pairing the two together, Hansen now understands the “why” behind agricultural practices.

“You are able to actually look at the crop and understand what’s going on with it instead of just looking at it and going, ‘Well, that’s a sick crop, but I don’t know why,’” he said.

Hansen first started seeing the benefits of his expanded knowledge of potato physiology during his internship with Simplot.

Hansen was a field operations intern with Simplot during the summer of 2024. He did field scouting from Rexburg to Burley looking at potato crops, checking fields for irregularities and counting emerged plants to project future yields. Gaining a full scope of the potato production process, from growing a potato crop to processing fries and tater tots, he spent time in Simplot’s Caldwell and Ontario potato processing facilities.

“In Caldwell, we got to see everything from the potato coming in, to the plant and coming out as fries,” Hansen said.

Hansen left the internship with an expanded professional network, including potato farmers, top Simplot officials and other colleagues he’ll continue working alongside in the industry.

“It was super good networking,” he said.

As he looks toward a future in agriculture, Hansen is prepared to start from the bottom and work his way up the career ladder, now with a greater understanding of the industry and the importance of scientific methodology in agriculture.

While at U of I, he was also active in the agricultural fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho and Idaho Farm Bureau Federation’s Young Farmers and Ranchers program.