Southland FFA? Really
A 21st century program that develops leaders that contribute to society Instead of taking from it.
What is FFA?
FFA is a dynamic student-led leadership development organization for students of agricultural education. The FFA changes lives and prepares students for premier leadership, personal growth and career success. FFA offers scholarships that can be used for any major and any college, but you have to be involved to receive the scholarships. Different events through out the year offer a chance for students to become a team, such as the judging events as well as individual events that promote competition.
What does F-F-A stand for?
F-F-A stands for Future Farmers of America, which is the official name of the organization, but we don’t use the full name and instead operate as the “FFA” because Future Farmers of America implies that we are all preparing to be farmers. Agriculture is much broader than farming and ranching. Members study things such as horticulture, aquaculture, food sciences, accounting, wildlife management, mechanics and engineering. FFA is broken down into areas over how to buy a house pet. Basically FFA teaches you how to live and live well in society.
Are FFA members going to be farmers?
Yes and No. Agriculture is a very broad field of study. Members study things like landscaping, floriculture, animal science, computer applications, accounting, environmental science, mechanics and engineering. Regardless of an FFA member’s career choice the FFA provides opportunities to build and apply math, science, technology and leadership skills to their life.
Are there any jobs in agriculture?
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at least 22 million people in the United States work in one of over 300 careers that exist in the field of agriculture. While most people think of farming when the word agriculture is mentioned, there are agriculture-related jobs in veterinary science, marketing, food processing, retail sales, accounting, business and timber harvesting. It is estimated that one in five people in the United States are working in jobs connected to agriculture. Some companies such as Tyson Chicken have said that they will hire a business person and teach them the areas of agriculture that they need.
Does everyone have to raise a cow or pig in FFA?
No. Every FFA member must have a supervised agricultural experience program or SAE as we call it. An SAE is a project or enterprise that gives members hands-on training and a chance to apply what is learned in the classroom. Livestock projects are very popular, but there are a lot of options: placement in an agricultural job, internships, experimental work in agriscience, horticultural projects and crop projects are just a few. I have seen a student that started a snow cone stand and in her four years of high school make $70,000, yes that is the correct amount of zero’s.
Do you have to be a cowboy to be in FFA?
Western wear is popular among many FFA members, but is definitely not a requirement. Some of our members are involved with beef and horse projects and value the western way of life, but FFA members come with all kinds of styles and interests. From big cities like Houston and San Antonio to small towns all over Texas, what brings FFA members together is their interest in agriculture, leadership and community service.
The agricultural science educationprogram is built onthethree core areas, classroom/laboratory instruction, supervised agricultural experience programs and FFA student organization activities/opportunities.FFA holds a federal charter. Two of the top three FFA executives are employed by the U.S. Department of Education.
FFA represents the relevancy to the core areas offering students opportunities that change lives and prepares students for premier leadership, personal growth and career success. Founded in 1928, the FFA organization represents a large diversity of over 300 careers in the food, fiber and natural resources industry. FFA is an integral part of a school system.
FFA uses agricultural education to create real-world success. Agriculture teachers become advisors to local FFA chapters, which students join. More than 7,000 FFA chapters are currently in existence; their programs are managed on a local, state, and national level. 620 as of 2009 are in Texas alone. Each chapter’s Program of Activities is designed with the needs of the students in mind. Activities vary greatly from school to school, but are based in a well-integrated curriculum. Chapter activities and FFA programs concentrate on three areas of our mission: premier leadership, personal growth and career success.
Classroom/Laboratory
The Classroom/Laboratory is your Ag classes that most everyone is familiar with in some form or fashion. Think to yourself about that tough, expensive steak that you bought and wished you had never spent $15.00 dollars on. Ag classes teach useful things such as how to look at a steak and tell if it is going to be tender and taste good just by evaluating certain characteristics of the meat. Sometimes, at restaurants you pay $15.00 for a rib-eye, but in reality, you may not be getting your money’s worth. They are actually giving you a different type of meat that is a fraction of the cost and the consumer never knows that they are getting taken advantage of. This is only a small area that we discuss in an Ag classes. We teach the students to be better consumers and not waste money.
SAE (supervised agricultural experience)
This is the area where Ag tends to get a bad name, but this is really a good thing. Most people know about the stock shows and animal projects, but there is so much more beyond just showing animals. A good example that Ag is changing is the experimental SAE. There are seven different areas that promote extended learning of the classroom. This is a science process where students use the scientific method to learn about the mysteries of life. SAE projects teach students about balancing check books, budgets, and developing records that they can carry into any career field.
- SAE is a vital component of the agricultural education program.
- SAE provides students with the opportunity to apply what they have learned in the classroom in a real life setting. It is an excellent way for students to learn.
- Students are to keep records on their SAE program.
- The concept of SAE in agricultural education originated with Rufus Stimson in Massachusetts in 1908 at Smith's Agricultural School.
- The SAE concept is built on the philosophy of pragmatism.
- When the FFA awards program is coupled with SAE, a perfect example of the Stimulus-Response Learning Theory is demonstrated. The classroom instruction is the stimulus, the SAE is the response and the FFA awards program is the reinforcement.
- Many of the FFA award programs are based on the students' SAE.
- FFA degree advancement is based partially on SAE.
- A teacher can require all students to have an SAE just as they require all students to do homework, take tests, and work in the agricultural laboratory. It is a part of agricultural education. The SAE can even be graded.
- SAE programs are conducted outside of regular agriculture class hours.
- Teachers are expected to visit students to supervise their experience program. A goal is to visit each student twice per year.
- The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 (a federal law) required all students to have "directed or supervised practice in agriculture, either on a farm provided for by the school or other farm, for at least six months per year." This act has since been changed but it was important enough to be included in federal law. This is what made agriculture "vocational" instead of "vocal."
- The primary reason many agriculture teachers have 12 month contracts is so they can supervise SAE programs during the summer months. The Federal Board for Vocational Education (an agency created by the Smith-Hughes Act) mandated that agriculture teachers work 12 months because the SAE was to be supervised.
- The Vocational Education Act of 1963 (a federal law) amended the Smith-Hughes Act in regards to SAE: "any amounts allotted ... for agriculture may be used for vocational education in any occupation involving knowledge and skills in agricultural subjects, whether or not such occupation involves work of the farm or of the farm home, and such education may be provided without directed or supervised practice on a farm." This was widely interpreted to mean students no longer had to have supervised programs. However, the intent of the legislation was to expand the scope of supervised program and not limit them just to the farm or to do away with them.
- Research at Ohio State found students possessed more knowledge of specific areas of agriculture if they had SAE programs in those areas.
- Research at Iowa State found that the ability to keep records was an important outcome of SAE.
- There has been an evolution over the years in terminology and components of SAE: Once upon a time it was a federal requirement that each teacher submit an end of the year report on SAE to the state vocational education officials. For each student, the type of SAE was reported along with income and yields. These reports were carefully scrutinized and a state summary was prepared and sent to Washington. The federal government then showed how much money students in vocational agriculture had made from their SAE program. Invariable, the income was much greater than federal expenditures on vocational agriculture.
When state supervisors visited an agricultural program in the old days, they examined the record books of students and frequently made SAE. This is not done anymore but there are still uses. This is a record for the teachers if they get audited to prove that students are doing what is required by the State of Texas. Something of even more importance is that students can receive scholarships and awards for their record book who would have known.
Components of a SAE Program
Entrepreneurship - The student plans, implements, operates, and assumes financial risks in a farming activity or agricultural business. In entrepreneurship programs, the students own the materials and other required inputs and keep financial records to determine return to investments. An SAE Entrepreneurship program provides students the opportunity to develop the necessary skills to become established in their own business or gain employment. Traditionally, agricultural education programs consisted of ownership of supervised agricultural experience programs in livestock and crop production. Today, with the expansion of the agricultural industry and declining number of farmers and ranchers, the nature of entrepreneurship programs has changed. Entrepreneurship programs can be developed in agricultural sales and services, forestry, marketing, horticulture, agricultural mechanics, agricultural processing, and other areas of agriculture in addition to production agriculture. Examples of entrepreneurship activities include: growing an acre of corn, operating a Christmas tree farm, running a pay-to-fish operation, growing bedding plants in the school greenhouse, raising a litter of pigs, owning and operating a lawn care service, or as a group of students growing a crop of poinsettias.
Placement - Placement programs involve the placement of students on farms and ranches, in agricultural businesses, in school laboratories, or in community facilities to provide a "learning by doing" environment. This is done outside of normal classroom hours and may be paid or non-paid. Students keep records as to hours worked, type of work or activities performed, and wages. Examples of placement SAE include: working after school at a farm supply store, placement in a florist shop, working on Saturdays at a riding stable, working in the school greenhouse after school, on weekends and holidays, or placement on a general livestock farm
Research - As agriculture has become more scientific, there is a need to conduct research to discover new knowledge. There are two major kinds of Research SAE programs.
Experimental - An extensive activity where the student plans and conducts a major agricultural experiment using the scientific process. The purpose of the experiment is to provide students "hands-on" experience in verifying, learning, or demonstrating scientific principles in agriculture to discover new knowledge using the scientific process. In an experimental SAE, there is a hypothesis, a control group, and variables are manipulated. Examples of experimental SAE activities include: comparing the effects of various planting media on plant growth, determining the impact of different levels of protein on fish growth, comparing three rooting hormones on root development or analyzing the effectiveness of different display methods on plant sales in a garden center.
Non-Experimental (analytical) - Students choose an agricultural problem that is not amenable to experimentation and design a plan to investigate and analyze the problem. The student will gather and evaluate data from a variety of sources and then produce some type of finished product. The product could be a marketing display or marketing plan for an agricultural commodity, a series of newspaper articles, a land use plan for a farm, a detailed landscape design for a community facility, an advertising campaign for an agribusiness, and so forth. An analytical SAE is flexible enough so that it could be used in any type of agricultural class, provides valuable experience, and contributes to the development of critical thinking skills deemed so important in education today.
Secondary Components of the SAE Program
Each student in the agricultural education program should have an exploratory, entrepreneurship, placement, or research SAE, or a combination of these. They provide experience-type learning activities that will help students learn more about agriculture and can lead to establishment in an agricultural career. In addition to these major SAE activities, there are three minor components of a SAE program--improvement and supplementary activities. These minor components, of and in themselves do not comprise a SAE program, but they can be valuable supplements to the SAE program. A comprehensive SAE program will include both improvement activities and supplementary activities.
Exploratory - This type of SAE is appropriate for beginning agricultural students, but is not restricted just to beginning students. This SAE activity is designed primarily to help students become literate in agriculture and/or become aware of possible careers in agriculture. Examples of exploratory SAE activities might include: observing and/or assisting a florist, interviewing an agricultural loan officer in a bank, preparing a scrapbook on the work of a veterinarian, growing plants in a milk jug "greenhouse," assisting on a horse farm for a day, attending an agricultural career day at the university, or preparation of a research report on food science careers.
Improvement - Improvement activities include a series of learning activities that improves the value or appearance of the place of employment, home, school or community; the efficiency of an enterprise or business, or the living conditions of the family. An improvement activity involves a series of steps and generally requires a number of days for completion. It may or may not be related to the major SAE activities. Examples of improvement activities include: landscaping the home, building or reorganizing a farm shop, computerizing the records of an agricultural business, overhauling a piece of equipment, or renovating and restocking a pond.
Supplementary - A supplementary activity is one where the student performs one specific agricultural skill outside of normal class time. This skill is not related to the major SAE, but is normally taught in an agricultural program. It involves experiential learning and does contribute to the development of agricultural skills and knowledge on the part of the student. The activity is accomplished in less than a day and does not require a series of steps. Examples of supplementary activities include: pruning a fruit tree, helping a neighbor castrate pigs, cutting firewood with a chain saw, staking tomatoes, or supervisory visits with the teacher. This was the norm until 1963.
What does FFA stand for? Is does not stand for Future Farmers of America anymore. In the 1980’s the organization realized that society was changing to a more urban type of environment. The name was changed to the National FFA organization to represent a broader variety of people that represent the organization. We are no longer the well- known terms, “kickers, cowboys, and bull riders.” Instead, we are professionals who are involved in your everyday life. There are Agriculture programs that process animals from start to finish then sell the meat to the community bringing in large amounts of money to the program. There are programs that restore tractors for shows. This was not done by a group of guys, but by a group of four cheerleading girls that did a better job than a lot of guys. Those four girls went to win Nationals that paid for a large portion of their college. South of here is a school that has an aquaculture facility where they raise catfish and tilapia for a fish fry at the end of the year. All of this could be done at this school with the support of the people reading this paper.
I am hoping this small explanation of the program enlightens everyone that has never taken an Ag class. Just like the FFA organization, I cannot survive without the help of everyone. When someone asks about the Ag program, let them know that we are not all about cows, plows, and sows. “Ag” is about developing professionals that contribute to society as productive members of society.
Works Cited
SAE Central. “For a New Era in Agriculture”. 3-31-09
National FFA Organization. Agricultural Education. 3-31-09.
Texas FFA Organization 3-3-09
http://www.ffa.org