FFA Week: Celebrating our current and future farmers

Show of hands:

Who likes to eat?

Who wears clothes?

Who uses products ranging from fuel to power vehicles to materials to build our homes?

(Checks hands.)

Yes, in fact, all of us.

Thank a farmer, a rancher, a logger.

The men and women who work in our nation's agricultural industries are truly -- to use a phrase -- essential workers.

Without them, we wouldn't have a safe and abundant food supply. We wouldn't have fiber for shirts, slacks, socks, etc. We wouldn't have many of the things we depend for our survival -- and comfort -- each day.

And that's why it's important for our nation to continue to develop the next generations of agricultural producers.

Enter Future Farmers of America.

FFA, along with organizations such as 4-H, cultivate interest in agricultural pursuits in young people.

A hallmark of FFA is a student's "project". Some raise cattle. Others study scientific topics that affect agriculture. Practical farm-related work is common. These projects require hard work and dedication over a lengthy period, and much like the life cycle of a corn crop, they often end with a work product that the students can not only be proud of but can also realize a financial reward.

Work hard. Earn a "living". The American Dream.

But such organizations do much more than help young people learn agricultural skills and gain real-world knowledge.

They enhance leadership and encourage teamwork. They build goal-oriented perspectives. They develop a sense of purpose larger than self. The American Ideal.

Feb. 18 through 25 is National FFA Week. In this past Weekend Edition of the Southeast Missourian, we highlighted several area FFA programs and students who are thriving in them. These boys and girls are the future of agriculture, and we applaud their efforts.

Their grandparents and great-grandparents would scarcely recognize agriculture in the 21st century. We've advanced from steel-wheel tractors to behemoth vehicles that drive themselves. We've developed disease- and pest-resistant crops. We've spliced genes and deployed biotechnology to create animal lines capable of providing protein on a global basis.

By the time these young people find themselves on agriculture's front lines, they will be leading the next iteration of agricultural wonders.

And their interest in and love for the land will owe, at least in part, to their experiences in their FFA chapters.

We would be remiss if we failed to congratulate and thank another group of people -- the men and women who step forward to lead agriculture programs in our schools and sponsor FFA chapters. These teachers take on these extra duties because they not only have an interest but out of a sense of duty to the next generation and all those coming afterward. We appreciate what they do.

National FFA Week. As a long-ago ad campaign might have said -- it's what's for dinner and what we're wearing and what our furniture is made of.