What FFA Means to Me
By Vance Zacharias Note: This past summer, Monsanto presented an Ag Youth in the Spotlight Award to Vance Zacharias, son on of a North Dakota farmer. Vance is heavily involved in FFA at the local and state levels, and we asked him to tell us why he believes FFA is important to himself and to [...]
FFA: Nurturing Seeds Called Young People
By Greg Wildhaber Dayton, Oregon FFA Chapter Ag Sales Coach I am the FFA Ag Sales coach from Dayton, Oregon. Four students from Dayton, a small farming town with one blinking light, are $1,000 richer because of Monsanto. And, also because of Monsanto’s continuous contribution to the FFA and Ag Sales Career Development Event, thousands of [...]
The Kindness of Strangers
Monsanto has a number of community and youth programs underway, like community grants and youth scholarships. They range in size from $1500 to $2500, and are designed to give back to or invest in the community and its young people. The money from the programs can be used in a number of ways – schools, [...]
Video: Youth Getting Back to the Farm
Did you know that about forty percent of the farmers in this country are 55 years old or older? I first heard this statistic from Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, at a 2010 Commodity Classic session and it really stuck with me. It got me thinking…you often hear parents talk about their childrens’ professions, “Oh, well they’re a [teacher, engineer, computer programmer…]” but it’s extremely rare, I believe, to hear someone say “my child is a farmer.”
Muscatine Ag Students Take Hands On Learning to the Extreme
By Kate Most farmers don’t have to worry about getting the crops in and making time for their algebra homework but at the Muscatine Ag Learning center in Muscatine, IA, the students face that very time crunch. The Muscatine Agriculture Learning Center is a unique center that serves Muscatine High School and the community college. [...]
The Photo Tells the Story
I read a lot of farm publications, mostly online, to see what’s happening in agriculture, follow issues and trends, see what’s happening politically in Washington and the state capitals and generally to understand the news environment of this big complex industry we call agriculture. Every so often, I’ll find a story that isn’t about any [...]
Farm Mom – A View from Here
Note from Mica: With our America’s Farmers Farm Mom of the Year contest in full swing with over 170 submissions so far, I asked my good friend and colleague Tami Craig Schilling to write a guest post for the blog, reflecting on what it means to be a farm mom. Tami is a full-time Monsanto [...]
