“Future Farmers of America,” also known as FFA, has been around for decades at Conestoga. As the name states, this organization is heavily based on agriculture, giving students who are interested the opportunity to learn and work in an agricultural environment. But there is much more to FFA than just “farming”.

FFA, as stated above, is heavily involved in agriculture, but that does not mean that it is just agriculture. Members who are in FFA learn about leadership, technical skill development and career exploration.

FFA explores many different branches of agricultural related careers. At the beginning of the school year, FFA members can attend an event known as Husker Harvest Day. During this event, many different companies in the agricultural field set up stands and talk about their career path. This is a really great event to attend as it gives insight to different job paths in agriculture that could be a possible future career choice.

As a member of FFA, students will develop leadership skills and advocate for any agricultural pursuits in their community. There are also leadership conferences where members can show off their leadership skills by workshop or presentation and there are also group discussions that focus on improving leadership.

In FFA, members can learn almost any technical skill involved in agriculture, and with the knowledge learned, can compete in conferences. These competitions are career development events (CDEs) and can range from: agricultural sales, floriculture, horticulture, animal science, wielding, small engines, natural resources, food science, etc. These can be practically anything as agriculture is involved in a lot of careers.

“Students should consider FFA an activity because it develops them [students] academically and socially to be successful post-high school,” explains FFA Advisor Emily Carpenter.