Montana FFA advisor blogs from Afghanistan

From the Great Falls Tribune, http://bit.ly/gvP9o8

CHINOOK, Montana — Deployed in Afghanistan with the 219th RED HORSE Squadron, Chinook teacher Robin Allen may not be in a classroom, but she's still found a way to educate her students.

Recently promoted to master sergeant, Allen has been in the military for 11 years, working as a structural craftsman. For the last four, she's also taught eighth through 12th grade agriculture in Chinook and was the FFA advisor.

Not wanting to lose that connection with her students and community, Allen decided to post journal entries on the school's website to update people as to what she was up to.

"Living in a small town, everyone likes to know what everyone is doing," Allen wrote in an email to the Tribune. "I thought it would be great to have one place that I could send messages to and everyone could read them — family, friends, community, students, etc."

Allen has posted blogs almost every two weeks since she left. While her entries share details about what she's working on, they also describe what it's like to live in Afghanistan.

In her first entry, she told the students how difficult it was for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the sun. In another she described how an almost powdery layer of dust covers everything.

Webpage manager Paula Molyneaux said that students and teachers alike follow Allen's updates.

"I think that it upped their awareness to have one in our staff shipped out," Molyneaux said. "Really, that's what Robin wanted. This was for them to be aware that she was over there and what was happening — to give them a bigger picture of what's going on in the world."

Allen is currently working on four projects to prepare for the next special forces group to come and take over. Her team is inventorying tools and equipment and doing repairs around the compound, including tinning a roof, sheathing a porch roof and adding some trusses and laying a deck. She expects to leave in the next month.

To read Allen's blog go to http://www.chinookschools.org/.

Minnesota FFA chapter tackles issues of hunger, poverty at banquet

http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1448789

The Plainview-Elgin-Millville FFA chapter in Minnesota recently hosted a Hunger Banquet at their school to help their classmates gain a greater understanding of hunger and poverty.

At a hunger banquet,guests draw tickets at random that assign them each to either a high-,
middle-, or low-income tier–based on the latest statistics about the number of people living in poverty. Each income level receives a corresponding meal: the 15 percent in the high-income tier are served a sumptuous meal; the 35 percent in the middle-income section eat a simple meal of rice and beans; and the 50 percent in the low-income tier help themselves to small portions of rice and water. Guests can also assume characterizations that describe the situation of a specific person at the income level to which they’ve been assigned. Finally, all guests are invited to share their thoughts after the meal.


FFA member Kimberly Wingard says she first participated in a hunger banquet when she attended FFA's Washington Leadership Conference.

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Are you interested in hosting a hunger banquet at your school?

Free resources are available through Oxfam America.

FFA leads former member to interesting career in entomology research

Today, special guest blogger Candice Rogers writes about how FFA led her to where she is today.

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I am so grateful to have stumbled into ag and most importantly my local chapter of the FFA my freshman year at Wasco High School.

It was a stroke of fate that all of the regular biology classes filled up and the only biology class left was ag bio. I was reluctant to partake in the “ag” side of the bio class at first, because I was ignorant about where my food came from and didn’t give ag people the respect they deserved.

Luckily, my ag bio teacher gave me a little push when he encouraged me to enter the agri-science fair. The rest was history as I climbed my way from the tiny Kern county Agri-science fair to the National Agri-science fair held in Kentucky.

It was unlike anything I ever experienced, royal blue everywhere, like a vast ocean, and I dove right in. I learned that FFA isn’t just for ranch hands and people who grew up on a farm. Before high school, I had no experience with agriculture. Now, I am 25, the entomology research coordinator for one of the top ag companies in the world and so grateful to attribute the foundation of my knowledge to FFA.

As entomology research coordinator, basically I am responsible for carrying out and supervising all the research that goes on in our lab; it’s like a lab supervisor position except some of the experiments I help design and conduct myself. So not only do I get to make the visions of our research leader come alive, I also get to use my creative mind to think of new issues we can tackle. I work with major almond and pistachio insect pests and try to figure out how to eradicate them in the most cost efficient yet environmentally responsible way possible.

Integrated pest management is the future of farming. I have a bachelor’s of science in biology, eight years’ experience in agriculture research, as well as about 45 units worth of agriculture science from a community college. I will also be getting my PCA license this year.

Today I want more people to get the same opportunities as I had. I want to encourage every high school student to become involved with FFA; you will not regret a minute of it!

Your food doesn’t just come from the grocery store, in fact, that was only one short leg of its journey. Knowledge is power, what you know could shape your entire life. My new goal is to educate others about the value of the responsible producers and sustainably grown produce.

Read more about me at my blog, http://theoldladyatheart.blogspot.com/.

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Candice Rogers is a former FFA member and National Agriscience Fair winner from Wasco FFA, California. She currently works in the agriculture industry and credits FFA for much of her success.

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Think you might be interested in a career as an entomologist? Check out this job description to find out what it takes!

Congratulations 2011 Ag Day Essay Contest winners!

Missouri FFA member Nora Faris recently won the 2011 Ag Day Essay Contest. Read her essay below or on the Ag Day website.
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Their faces peer out at me from the glossy cover of a magazine, the bold headline touting them as “America’s Most Valuable People”. Among their ranks are political pundits, ingenious inventors, humble humanitarians, and a host of other charismatic characters. Their varied accomplishments reflect a time-tested tradition of hard work and good ol’ American ingenuity, but their lofty title as our country’s “most valuable” citizens makes me wonder. Would Americans perish from “technological withdrawal” if Steve Jobs discontinued the iPad? No. Would a national crisis ensue if Lady GaGa retired from performing? I don’t think so. If Mark Zuckerberg terminated Facebook, would the world as we know it cease to exist? I think not.

Then it occurs to me: America’s “Most Valuable People” aren’t found on magazine covers. Rather, they are found in farm fields, feed stores, and livestock barns. They are American farmers, a group whose labors, although largely unrecognized, are vital to the lives of all U.S. citizens – or at least the ones that eat.

In this modern age of supermarkets and 24-hour fast food restaurants, it has become increasingly hard for the American public to fathom where their food comes from. Long gone are the days when a chicken dinner meant selecting a bird from the henhouse. Today’s consumer, faced with an endless array of choices, selects their poultry with little knowledge of its origin, unaware of the work that went into producing and dispatching the bird. They fail to realize the vital connection between farm and food, between production and consumption. Little do they realize that without our nation’s strong agricultural infrastructure of farmers, their grocery store shelves would be bare.

As America’s population continues to grow, a farmer’s job is to keep up with the escalating demand for food. They will have to play multiple roles in their quest to provide nutritious, affordable products for more than 300 million Americans. Farmers will become inventors, developing devices that will improve crop yields and abolish dated farming practices. They will become delegates for agriculture, lobbying for the advancement of farming in their legislatures. Most importantly, farmers will become naturalists, determining the best solutions for responsible soil, water, and resource management.

Although it’s unlikely that a soybean farmer from Kansas will ever steal Kim Kardashian’s VIP publicity, their true importance to their fellow citizens cannot be denied. American farmers’ dedication to maintaining an unrivaled level of food security makes them our nation’s “Most Valuable People”, even if they drive a Case instead of a Cadillac.

California FFA chapter in need of donated farm equipment

Donated farm equipment that works is the only thing that will save an FFA chapter’s 11-acre alfalfa farm.

The chapter’s 380 members are ready to roll up their sleeves and do everything to keep the farm alive. But they don’t have the right tools, according to a Morgan Hill Times article today.

And unless they find someone to donate mowers, balers and tractors so they can get to work, the farm, located behind Sobrato High School, will be history.

FFA members manage the operation of a greenhouse and livestock barns and can continue taking care of those operations. But their lack of equipment has led to their alfalfa acreage to lie underdeveloped.

So students are asking their community to give any functioning farm equipment to FFA. They’re looking for tractors, power-takeoff implements and three-point implements to move dirt, till, mow, plant, level and harvest their crop. The school’s metal shop classes will also accept equipment that needs minor repairs so they can work on fixes and get the machines to work for FFA.

Sobrato’s agriculture mechanics and veterinary science teacher Joe Martin is the one to contact if you have equipment to give or can help his FFA chapter in any way. E-mail him at joseph.martin@mhu.k12.ca.us.

FFA Advisors Help Soldiers' Mission in Afghanistan

The Indiana National Guard' Agribusiness Development Team is preparing students in Afghanistan to become the future leaders of their country's agriculture industry.



And, they're getting a little help from Indiana's agriculture teachers and FFA advisors.



The 3-19th agribusiness team requested lesson plans from each of Indiana's 186 National FFA Organization chapters to help provide Afghan youth with practical experiences in agriculture.



Financial management and record keeping are critical tasks for the Afghan students as they work towards establishing profitable, sustainable agribusinesses.



U.S. Army Maj. Jeremy Gulley, who oversees the program, explains the purpose of their mission:



"Improved education will illuminate the path to a future that thirty years of war has made impossible and unknowable."



We thank the 3 - 19th agribusiness team, and all U.S. soliders, for helping secure a better future for our country and for the world.



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For more information about the 3-19th and their mission, and agriculture in Afghanistan, check out these links:

• Press Release: Indiana Future Farmers Assisting Khost Agricultural Students


• Agribusiness Development Team's Website


• Agribusiness Development Team's Photo Essays
  
• Agriculture in Afghanistan (USDA)