“I believe in the future of agriculture with a faith born not of words but of deeds,” this is the first phrase of the FFA creed by E.M. Tiffany and it is also what I believe in.
I have grown up, and currently live in a small farming town of less than 1,000 and I don’t think there is a better place to grow up than in my home-town. Our town is comprised mostly of farming families, or those who have retired from farming but didn’t want to leave our amazing community behind. We have a small school that has around one hundred students in the high school, and of those one hundred, about half are members of our high school’s FFA chapter. This may not seem like anything that is extremely special, but to me it is an amazing thing. To me being evolved with the FFA is one of the best things any student can do for himself or herself. The FFA instills values in its members that can’t be found in any other youth organization, things like a good work ethic, respect, a desire to better your self and plan for the future are all things that the FFA teaches its members.
Today there are some people that say there is no place for agriculture in our ever changing, technological world, but they don’t know what advancements agriculture and agriculturalists are making. The FFA is helping to make these advancements possible. The National FFA organization makes it possible for students to learn not only the ins and outs of “old school” agriculture, but also “new school” agriculture. I believe in the future of agriculture because of what the FFA has to offer this “new school” agriculture, and what it has to offer is students who are excited to not only learn about agriculture but are ready to bring agriculture up to date so that there will always be a future for ag.
I am one example of how students are bringing agriculture into the 21st century thought the FFA. My ag project though my local FFA chapter is based in the field of agriscience. My project involves experimenting with biological agents to control the spread of yellow star thistle, which is a relatively new area of study. I’m pretty sure agriculturalists eighty years ago never thought that weeds could be controlled by little bugs eating them and that if you would have told them that this kind of research would be happening someday they would have been blown away. This is just one of many examples of how agriculture has advance leaps and bounds.
So to those that say there is no place for agriculture or the farmers of yesteryear in our tomorrow I say have some faith in the advancement of agriculture and you will see that the future of agriculture is bright. The actions my generation, weather they are FFA members or not, take will help to brighten the future of agriculture with a faith born not of words, but by what we do and how people my age bring agriculture up to date. This is why “I believe in the future of agriculture with a faith born not of words but of deeds.“