This curriculum guide, the first part of a core curriculum for a rural agriculture program, consists of materials for use in presenting the first seven units of a nine-unit course for high school vocational agriculture students living in rural areas. Addressed in the individual units of the guide are the following topics: educational and employment opportunities in the field of agriculture, leadership and citizenship, supervised occupational experience, livestock science, crop science, soil science and conservation of natural resources, and horticulture. Each unit contains some or all of the following: suggestions to the teacher, a teacher's guide, a competency inventory, information sheets, student worksheets or assignment sheets and a key, demonstrations, job sheets, transparencies, a discussion guide for the transparencies, and sample test questions along with a teacher's key. (MN)