Minnesota FFA chapters have a lot to be proud of after the recent National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, with members bringing home hardware and memories.

“Minnesota continues to be one of the highest represented associations,” says Lavyne Rada, Minnesota FFA executive director. “We have over 1,000 students, parents, advisors, teachers, supporters, administrators that come from Minnesota to convention each year. Many of those are competing, but a lot of them are there for career explorations and leadership development events, and just really to learn and grow as members.”

Each year, National FFA honors four youth with American Star Awards — American Star Farmer, American Star in Agribusiness, American Star in Agricultural Placement and American Star in Agriscience — which are presented to FFA members who demonstrate outstanding agricultural skills and competencies through completion of a supervised agricultural experience.

Daniel Jossund from the Ada-Borup-West FFA Chapter received the American Star Farmer award. Read more about Jossund by clicking Minnesota home to FFA American Star Farmer.

Minnesota FFA was well represented on the convention stage as 96 FFA members were recognized achieving their American FFA Degree. “Having interviewed each student for this honor, I know the time and dedication each student had in meeting the educational, financial, leadership and service-learning requirements for this degree,” Rada says.

Behind every individual’s accomplishment is a strong chapter, and Rada believes that history was made. “American degrees are definitely a high honor, especially the American Star Farmer,” she says, “but we also had two chapters receive awards with Sleepy Eye as one of the top 10 high school chapters recognized as a model of excellence; and Rockford Middle School was one of the top five middle school models of excellence chapters. … I have no memory in almost 20 years in Minnesota ag education of Minnesota programs being in those finalist areas, and we had two of them this year. So that was very exciting.”

Minnesota chapters receiving star ratings are Academy For Sciences and Agriculture, two star; Chatfield, three star; Cleveland, two star; Crookston, two star; Dassel-Cokato, two star; Eden Valley-Watkins, three star; Forest Lake, two star; Goodhue, two star; Hancock, one star; Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted, three star; Mankato, three star; Martin County West, two star; Plainview-Elgin-Millville, one star; Princeton, two star; Randolph, two star; Redwood Valley, two star; Rockford, three star; Rockford Middle, three star; ROCORI, three star; Sleepy Eye, three star; and Tracy Area, three star. Only three-star high school chapters are eligible for the Model of Excellence awards.

In pursuit of becoming a national officer, Kyle Thomas of the Rockford FFA advanced to be one of the final 21 candidates, but was not included in the final slate of six.

A full wrap up on Minnesota successes can be found online.

Future looks bright

Rada is bullish on Minnesota FFA as the organization is in growth mode. “We have added five new FFA chapters since the beginning of the school year,” she says. “And I think we’ve added 20-ish new teaching positions, so many more hundreds of students have access to agriculture education and FFA.”

Final membership rosters are due in April, and Rada estimates that tally will show around 16,000 members. She says there are many more students enrolled in agriculture education courses in Minnesota high schools and middle schools, “so there’s potential to grow, and our goal is to remove the barrier to [FFA] membership — so that any students in agricultural education would have access to FFA without a cost to them individually.”

She realizes that total FFA access will not occur overnight, but she has her eyes set on five years down the road, when the National FFA Organization turns 100.

“That’s our ultimate goal, trying to provide every student access to career exploration, to leadership development and to the impact of service learning through agricultural education,” she says, “even if they never leave their own community, because we know that the magic happens locally.”