FFA Teaches Us About Our Food and Environment

We the Mount Vernon Mustangs are missing a very important part of our education: agricultural education, more specifically Future Farmers of America. FFA is a national organization that offers classes that promote and support agricultural education. Their goals and aspirations are “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve.” 

Some say Mount Vernon doesn’t need this program, as our students can take agriculture classes at Springville, or even get involved in other schools’ FFA programs, but it’s important for all students to have this opportunity, and some don’t have the ability to travel for classes. 

One reason FFA education would be valuable is it helps students understand where their food comes from.  One of the many issues students at Mount Vernon face is that they don’t fully understand where their food comes from or what happens to it before it ends up in their local grocery stores. In a study done by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy it states that seven percent of our nation’s adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Having An FFA chapter in Mount Vernon would not only end ignorance of agriculture but also bring responsibility and leadership to students involved. One example of this could be having and maintaining a greenhouse for our school. With the produce we would be able to cook meals fresh and be able to donate leftovers to our local pantry or shelter.  

Not only would our FFA chapter benefit from a greenhouse but so would our other science classes such as our earth science class and our community opening the greenhouse and garden up to everyone to use and benefit from. 

We could start FFA immediately as an extracurricular activity which would help to be able to grow a class for the following year.   We would also be able to open the program up to Lisbon so they can have a closer option and also be able to help their community and their school be better.  In order to make our community stronger and help our students we need an FFA chapter, we need a better agriculture education we deserve the right to learn and do what we love. This in the end will not only benefit our community but others, and keep us growing as one.