Colton Roy remembers starting out in FFA at Trenton, eager to make the most of his time in the agricultural organization. His cousins had been in FFA, and now he was ready to embrace the experience.
“I just took every opportunity I could,” he says.
That mindset led him through an eventful FFA career, working with honeybees as part of his Supervised Agricultural Experience, participating in all those familiar chapter events, winning the State Star in Agribusiness, and then last spring being named the Missouri FFA state president.
A large part of the story of Missouri agriculture is established people helping and developing the next generation of leaders, and Roy experienced that, drawing inspiration from the state officer team when he was a sophomore at Trenton.
“The state officer team played a really big role in my experience in the organization,” he says.
Now, Roy gets to play that role for other FFA members, traveling around the state to meet with them.
“Most of our time consists of meeting with different members,” he says. “… Interacting with the members has been a really big joy.”
Roy and other officers also do media interviews, talking about the organization and opportunities for young people interested in agriculture.
“We’re sharing our story and what we do as an organization,” he says.
He even had a chance to address the Missouri General Assembly at the state capitol in Jefferson City. Roy is currently a student at the University of Missouri, studying at MU’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.
Roy says he is grateful for his experience in FFA and the doors agriculture and the organization have opened. He encourages young members just starting out to dive in and make the most of their time in FFA.
“It’s important to take advantage of a lot of different opportunities,” he says.
Roy’s story is just one of the many that make up Missouri agriculture. National Ag Day on March 21 celebrates that industry and all the people in it.
Among those stories is Missouri Director of Agriculture Chris Chinn, a northeast Missouri farmer who has served as director since 2017.
“We are always excited to celebrate Missouri farmers and ranchers,” she says. “Their hard work maintains the state’s position nationally and ensures a bright future for the next generation of Missouri agriculturalists.”
It’s a diverse agricultural state, with flat farmland and bottom ground to rolling, rocky Ozark landscapes. Farming can look very different around the state. It’s a long way from Rock Port to New Madrid.
But the common theme is production. Missouri ranks second nationally in hay production, third in beef cow inventory, fourth in rice production, sixth in turkey inventory, sixth in soybean production, sixth in hog inventory, sixth in cotton production and ninth in corn production.
Missouri is also second nationally in total number of farms, with about 95,000 as of 2022, according to the Missouri Department of Agriculture.
Source:agupdate.com
Categories: Missouri, Crops, Corn, Soybeans, General, Livestock, Beef Cattle