FFA seeing resurgence

While the number of Iowa farmers has fallen over the years, the number of F-F-A members is on the rise. This is National F-F-A Week and the group formerly known as Future Farmers of America is seeing a resurgence in popularity. Lewis Beck is an F-F-A chapter advisor in northeast Iowa.Beck has 50 young people in his La Porte/Dysart chapter, based at Union High School, just south of Waterloo. Statewide, F-F-A had about nine-thousand members in 1990, compared to 11-thousand-500 in Iowa today. While the agricultural industry underwent big changes following the farm crisis two decades ago, he says the F-F-A changed too. He says the emphasis has changed, away from production agriculture and more toward agri-science, horticulture and alternative agricultural subjects. Beck says F-F-A teaches young people about the environment and agricultural leadership, but also character-building, citizenship, volunteerism and patriotism.There are 230 F-F-A chapters in Iowa, 72-hundred nationwide.