
While attending the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays got to talk with FFA Chief Executive Officer Scott Stump about the success of the organization.
FFA’s membership has grown to more than a million individuals and Stump feels the responsibility of delivering to the needs of each member on a local level. He said, “As those memberships continue to rise, how do we come alongside agricultural teachers and FFA members to create more experiences for them to grow as leaders, personally, and in career success? We have to really ramp up over the next few years to meet the needs of those students.”
Stump spoke on the competitiveness of FFA members from Oklahoma, saying that they do really well in most aspects of the organization. His own son lost a competition to an Oklahoma student one year. “We have nearly 4,000 students that are at the top of their game, that are bringing those skills into this environment to compete in these events against students from other states across the country,” he said. “In addition to that, we awarded 4,055 American Degree awards, which is our highest award given.
“These are students who have shown that they have earned and productively invested $10,000 out of their Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE), they have leadership and service experience documented, and academic success documented. I don’t know an employer in the world who wouldn’t want to hire one of these students. To me, that is an exciting testament to where our students and teachers are advancing as we continue this work.”
Historically, the organization was known as Future Farmers of America, and Stump, himself, was a student of vocational agricultural education. Stump described FFA’s role is to help students grow agriculture through science, business, and technology.
“There are lots of advancements all the way along that continuum,” Stump said. “Especially as we talk about sustainability and precision ag. That’s the space where we are going to continue to work and pour into our students and provide resources to teachers to help make that possible.”
Agriscience is an exploding area of agriculture and Stump is always amazed with the Agriscience Stars that he sees at Convention. He said, “We’ve had students create new organic herbicides that ultimately made their way into the commercial marketplace. These students are getting it, and they are hungry to solve the big problems of the world!”
In the near future, Stump hopes that FFA can get more students into Workplace Learning Experiences. “It’s harder for people under the age of 18 to get a part-time job,” he said. “Only about 35 percent of high school students have work experience before they graduate in the general public. We know through our data that the FFA organization is well over 50 percent of students who are out actively working or having an entrepreneurial experience, but we need to lean into that even more. America needs a workforce right now. We are 7 million short across the economy in all sectors of having people who can fill or are willing to fill jobs. We have a resource in our students to create the talent for the future of agriculture and that is what keeps me up at night.”
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