This is a week of celebration for Iowa’s 12,000 F.F.A. members, marking the accomplishments of the vocational agriculture program. The theme for this National F.F.A. Week is “Infinite Potential.” Kurt Veldhuizen is the F.F.A. advisor at Webster City High School and says he’s proud to see the continued success of the 83-year-old program.
Veldhuizen says, “We last year nationally broke the record of FFA members, so in the way of agriculture today of people usually thinking there’s fewer and fewer farmers, but agriculture as a whole is a growing economy.” Nationwide, there are more than 500,000 F.F.A. members in 7,400 chapters in all 50 states.
Veldhuizen says he’s confident agriculture will remain the nation’s top industry, currently employing more than 24-million people. “We’re always going to need to be able to feed our society and stats that estimate the world population doubling by 2050,” he says. “It’s important to teach these kids about agriculture and the various industries of agriculture to make sure it’s viable and we’ll continue to have a very economical food supply.”
The group changed its name from Future Farmers of America to FFA in 1998 to reflect the diverse scope of the agriculture industry. Iowa’s F.F.A. chapters will conduct special activities all week, like faculty cookouts and driving tractors to school. Learn more at: “www.ffa.org“.
By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City