The number of farms in the United States may be declining but the same isn’t true of the youth organization that’s spent decades preparing students for a career in agriculture. The Tennessee FFA is enjoying record membership with more than 32,000 members across the Tri-Star state.
Much of that growth has occurred since the pandemic in 2020. During a time when families were opting to stay home and avoid new social groups, the Tennessee FFA’s membership doubled. Tennessee FFA State Director and former agriculture teacher Ryan Inman believes one big reason for the spike could be the hands-on opportunities the FFA provides students in and out of the classroom.
“FFA is different because you look at some of these other groups and they’re extracurricular. You do them outside of the classroom hours and it’s separate from the classroom,” said Inman. “But FFA is intra-curricular which means that we want to have a good combination of those three components.”
The national FFA organization, formerly known as Future Farmers of America, received a federal charter in 1950 allowing the program to become an intra-curricular component of public agricultural education across the country. In Tennessee there are FFA chapters in 237 public schools, representing the fifth largest population of FFA students across the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Inman says there are real benefits for students following the FFA’s three-component model – classroom/laboratory instruction, leadership education and experiential learning.
The Tennessee FFA hosts an annual Camp Clements for students that offers career and leadership development classes. Next summer the youth organization will also host a forestry camp that immerses students in the career, allowing them to participate in real hands-on forestry experiences.
The Tennessee FFA additionally offers 29 career and leadership development contests. Some of these contests align with specific state standards and state-specific trade criteria.
“What we tend to do with the contests that are offered, we try to make those more aligned with industry standards within our state. For instance, you take the forestry contest. If you look at the national list, a lot of the trees are trees all over the US. We don’t have a lot of those trees in Tennessee, so we worked with the forestry division and got their recommendations on trees that our students should know. We kind of tweaked our rules to align more to industry standards,” said Inman.
In addition to working closely with the Department of Agriculture, the FFA has partnered with the Tennessee Farm Bureau, the Tennessee Farm Cooperative and more to bring students career and leadership opportunities.
The Tennessee FFA also provides 400 proficiency awards to eligible students each year. These awards allow members to explore roles in education, communications, entrepreneurialism, agribusiness, agriscience, and others.
“It doesn’t matter if you live on a farm with 1,000 acres or if you live in the middle of town, there’s an area you can still participate in,” said Inman. “We’re just excited to move forward and to see the continued and sustained growth.”
