NFO-193 (AV10694): Youth in Agriculture

FFA the Future Farmers of America celebrated its 40th anniversary at their national convention held at Kansas City Missouri thousands of blue and gold jackets were gathered in that city the heart of America to demonstrate their faith in the future of Agriculture and to conduct their business at their National Convention what about the future of Agriculture what is the purpose of Future Farmers of America and the FFA Creed in which it states I believe unless dependents and begging and more power in bargaining I'll be visiting with four delegates and Representatives that are at that convention one the president of the Illinois FFA and the vice-president of that state also the fourth district director and also the gentleman that came in second on the public speaking contest of the entire United States all on US farm report u.s. farm report a public information program brought you in the interest of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the National Farmers Organization in this area and others interested in having American agriculture received cost of production plus a reasonable profit the American farmers and ranchers are building a brighter future for agriculture through the national farmers organization the organization that woke America and represents the leadership of agriculture us farm report now presents youth in agriculture I'm visiting with dan Lehmann the State FFA president from the state of Illinois and Dick Crone to play second in the public speaking contest in the whole United States dan where's your hometown I'm from Pleasant Plains Illinois which is a small town of about 500 and it's about 15 miles west of the capital of Illinois Springfield what kind of farming operation are you presently in are you in farming with your father well I'm helping my father this year now I'll be going to school next year so that'll cut down on the help but it's a grain and livestock farm it's four- acre 400 acres and we have 375 of corn and then we raise cattle and homes now you being the president of the State FFA in the state of Illinois what is your duties as president well I have many duties the main one is to represent the FFA but I'll preside over our state Convention which is next summer at Champaign the University of Illinois June 10 11 and 12 I'll also represent the FFA speaking this is my main job this year because I will be speaking at some 40 chapter banquets and I've already spoken that leadership training schools and then again I'll represent the FFA at other youth organizations and other organizations similar to the NFO and organizations as fertilizer business my main job is speaking while speaking of speaking I'd like to address this next question - Dick Crone who was the runner-up in the public speaking contest for the entire nation Dick where's your home I am from Harvard Illinois it's a town besides a 500 and it's five miles from the Wisconsin state line now what type of operation are you engaged in agricultural wise I'm also in operation with my father I lived on 110 acre livestock and grain farm my famous- my most successful livestock operation is swine production I raise registered Chester white and Duroc swine although certainly must have been a great experience and a honor for you to come in second place in this public speaking contest of the entire nation in the United States amongst all the public speakers for the Future Farmers of America what was your topic that you spoke on my main topic was on the world food crisis the title of my speech was hunger allows no choice hunger allows no choice well Dick we'll get back to you on that topic but now I'd like to visit with Dan about the purposes of the Future Farmers of America Dan most everyone knows that FFA the FFA motto is learning to do doing to learn and earning to live and living to serve could you explain what is basically the purpose of the Future Farmers of America well sir in general terms the purpose of our organization the FFA is to develop rural leadership cooperation and citizenship and probably the most tremendous thing about organization is the way that we go about developing these abilities now we could take any one of them leadership you must have forms of public speaking as Dicks already talked about citizenship there was a conference in Washington DC this past summer for the state presidents of all the state associations and we visited with government and learned about our American heritage now cooperation this is done in Chapter meetings and all this is based around what we are an intricate part of and that is vocational education of Agriculture this is through the US Office of Education and in classroom activities we learn much about these three things a main part of it is serving as the model point out the last sign the last line in the model was earning to or learning to serve and we do serve in many different positions as - president as the district directors and vice presidents that we have here I noticed on the latest national Future Farmers publication that the group of the FFA students all across the country right there on the Capitol steps and I notice your picture right on the front page could you tell us a little bit about your trip back to Washington yes well this as I mentioned was with all state presidents in our organization of FFA of which they are there are 50 state associations and while we're at that conference we met with the president of United States Lyndon Johnson also speaker McCormick Speaker of the House Gerald Ford and many others it was based around cooperation and citizenship we developed citizenship mainly through learning about our government and what we can do how we can help out our congressmen and Senators we did this through counseling with them one of the highlights of the entire meeting was a breakfast sponsored by organization for each state representative asked his senator and his congressmen or senators to come to the breakfast we got to eat breakfast- breakfast with him in my case it was Paul Findley Congressman Paul Findley many others I saw so many names that you hear over the nation so many times and it was really tremendous just getting to talk and and meeting with these men experience in itself actually yes sir Dan Lehmann you are president of the FFA of the state of Illinois you just came back or on your way back from the experience of your national convention I know a lot of activity went on down there this year one particular was the vote on whether to let girls in the organization could you give us a rundown a little bit about some of the highlights and the purposes and the main agenda that was at your National Convention this year yes well let's first start with the main agenda as each National Convention there are certain procedures that we do have to go through and that's recognizing outstanding young men in the FFA or our organization and recognizing people that have helped us so you might have guessed that this main convention is developed around that and then a very important part of that very important part is that is our business where we determine as you mentioned about the girls and our dues and anything that the FFA faces at that time there were four major items of business this year one being the girls and as last year was voted down so girls will not become members of our organization now you probably can see already two sides of this because to be a member of our organization you have to be in vo-ag classes girls which are in vo-ag classes are not supposed to be members of the FFA and they wonder why but as was discussed our heritage was built our organization was built with what young men another thing was that our national dues were set when our organization began in 1928 at $0.10 the dues that our organization got up until this year were 10 cents and this is the first time we've increased and increased our national dues to $1.00 what would what would you say it was the main purpose of increasing your dues there is a combination of things one the inflation because we can't keep down the expenses of the convention and the programs and leadership development that we have organization without increasing the dues the past couple years we had to reach into reserve funds which we have plenty in reserve but there won't be plenty if we keep losing money another topic that was brought up this year was reapportioning- reapportionment of delegates to the National Convention at this time there are two delegates from each state at our National Convention the reapportion is sure to have two delegates from each state and then another delegate for every 10,000 members over the first 10,000 that each state has the last item of business that we discussed was a National Center and this is a 2 million dollar program first stage program that we're building or hope to build somebody in Washington DC and we gave our National Board the OK to go ahead and develop this Center dan Lehmann president of the FFA of the state of Illinois NICU plays second in the FFA public speaking contest of the whole United States and you mentioned that your topic was and your title was hunger allows no choice you know not too long ago Monsignor father O'Rourke I should say he was the national director of the National Catholic or a live conference he made a extensive study also and he came up with a television program here recently on titled cheap food means hungry people so I dislike for you they explained to us how you came about deciding to choose this topic as your subject so according to the National FFA public speaking rule the subject matter for these speeches must be something concerning agriculture and I found that this was probably one of the most interesting subjects that I could possibly find I knew I was interested in in it and I have been for probably several years now so this is why I chose the subject it relates to agriculture and it's also something which I found very interesting this is right not only relates to agriculture but it's a an interest nationwide the hunger of the world and also over here in the United States could you give us a little bit of your background what you had prepared in your speech and the research that you did for this presentation I started preparing a speech about one year and a half ago in June 1967 most the material which I used for his speech was material which I received in magazine articles and many of the popular farm magazines and also materials for which I sent forth from the Department of the war on hunger in Washington could you give us a sample of your speech some of the contents that make you come in second place some of the important parts in it well in my speech I tried to point out the importance or the problem that exists in our world today I said that over 1 1/2 billion people on this earth today go to bed hungry every night this is one half of the world's population and that millions of these people are actually starving and quite often we do not realize this in the United States offer also we think that these people are only in Asia in Africa or India and this is true a vast majority of these people are hungry in these countries what this problem does also exist here right here in America and this is right we have many hunger does not distinguish between race religion or color but we do have several different groups that a large majority of them are going to bed hungry every night I'm talking about for example American Indian or the southern southern Negro or immigrants from other countries mainly the poor people in my speech I pointed out that last year in Tennessee there was a story of five small children who devoured a live chicken feathers blood and all because they were starving to death and this I think is exemplifies the problem that does exist in the United States right now did you find anything in your studies and research that you prepared for this speech the main purpose on why that we have hunger not over here in the United States but worldwide I mean why that people are starving there are probably two reasons two major factors in the world food crisis one is food production right now we do not have enough food in many countries to feed this population in the world and the second one is population growth our population is multiplying at a rate of 2 and 1/2 percent per year so that's by the year 2000 or our world population will double so these two factors population and also food production are the reasons why we are has suffering from this problem right now and in by the year of 2000 the old world population is going to be expected to be fed by the United States Canada and the Oceania countries which the Australian New Zealand so the whole world is going to be depending on the United States and these countries so this is going to mean that not only production but it's going to be important that the farmers the future farmers like you boys here are brought back to American agriculture to stay on the farm to produce US production a Dick what kind of experience do you think that this public speaking has given you confidence and for your future I think that the FFA public speaking is affecting my life more than any other thing after this point it has opened many opportunities to me that I know other future farmers who never had the experience to have I have met people from all over the United States and share with them many memorable experiences also I have learned through public speaking the ability to express myself something which I won't be able to use and which I will have to use every day of my life to communicate and express my ideas with my fellow man there come let me ask you this question what are your intentions after you finish school what type of occupation you're going to go into are you going back to the farm after I graduate from high school this year I plan to go to the University of Illinois and major in agricultural communications and after you graduate from college what field do you think you're going to then in the communications field my plans right now are probably to go into either broadcasting or a newspaper article writing well why do you feel then that today that a lot of the youth is leaving the farms and not going back to the farm are not going into agriculture American agriculture in the productive end has been very very efficient and we have pointed out that we do not need as many people to produce the food that we did a while ago but because boys are not going into productive farming there are still many many opportunities open to them in agriculture agriculture is America's largest industry and these boys may not go into farming but they hopefully will go into the many related occupations this is right actually agriculture's become a more efficient we've produced more pounds of ham from the lean meat hog today than the old style of bacon from three hands we produced more corn from a bushel of corn than any time in the history but yet we still are operating under the old marketing structure and a price structure Jim I'd like to turn now to Jim Johnson who is the vice-president of the FFA in the state of Illinois Jim it's a pleasure having you on the program and where do you make your home I live in DeKalb Illinois with my parents on a 200 acre farm now you're a senior in high school or if you graduated no I graduated from high school two years ago then you are actually in farming operation with your fam now you plan to stay on the farm my plans now are to stay on the farm with my father Jim one of the outstanding features and backbones of the Future Farmers of America is the FFA Creed which every high school students and every FFA student has to learn and recite and actually this isn't this probably the backbone of the organization yes it tells basically our purposes and goals in life could you will recite the FFA Creed plays yes first I'd like to give a little back down to the Creed it was written and adopted at the third convention and has since been revised only once to update it to the future goals of the FFA to make it a little bit more contemporary now as I said it was written by E.M. Tiffany and still the original version means so much to all of us it consists of five paragraphs I believe in the future of farming with the faith born not of with a faith born not of words but of deeds achievements worn by present and past generations of agriculturalists in the promise of better days through better ways even as the better things we now enjoy have come up to us from the struggles of former years I believe that to live and work on a good farm or to be engaged in other agricultural pursuits as pleasant as well as challenging for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which even in hours of discouragement I cannot deny I believe in leadership from ourselves and respect from others I believe in my own ability to work efficiently and think clearly with such knowledge and skill as I can secure and in the ability of progressive agriculturists to serve our own and the public interest in producing and marketing the product of our toil I believe in less dependence on begging and more power and bargaining in the life abundant and enough honest wealth to help make it so for others as well as myself unless need for charity and more of it when needed and being happy myself and playing square with those whose happiness depends upon me I believe that rural America can and will hold true to the best traditions in our national life and that I can exert an influence in my home and my community which will stand solid for my part in that inspiring task thank you Jim that is a creed that is well said and I think that says a lot wrapped up in in a real night nutshell and then package Jim you're district director for the state of Illinois I wondered if you could explain the directors duties and just a little bit about the state structure of the Future Farmers of America okay starting with the structure of the state and starting at the top and working down the first had the state level the state is divided into five districts each being about equal in size in each about a fifth of the state and then each district is divided into five sections giving us 25 sections in the state in charge of each section is a vice president or a president as you choose to call and from these presidents is chosen a director and my job is district 4 director for Illinois and then going to the some of the duties of the director to start with he is a director as a member of the executive committee and this is composed of the four major state officers the five directors and then our adult leaders know what is the purpose of the executive committee well the executive committee meets to transact business that comes between any regular state officers meeting that is imperative and must be considered and cannot wait for the for the next state officers means is the main duty of the executive committee now what about your leadership school well the leadership school is a duty of the second duty of the sectional president and in this he is in charge he conducts it master of ceremonies you might say in at these schools he takes care of the whole works and it is for the chapter officers of the whole section and each officer intends and has as it is called the leadership training for the year he is gets an insight into his duties we generally have a major state officer there that provides us with inspiration and information and there generally is a banquet at these schools - you're a senior and this is a last year in your high school what type a farming operation do you have with your father well I live on a 440 acre farm with my father and we have a family type partnership with my grandfather two uncles and my father and there is a total of 1200 acres in the whole operation what would you say was the most climax thing this year at National Convention I know a lot of activity went on what would your opinion would you say was the highlights of this year's convention well I think the one thing would be the business session that we conducted and it was a very busy session and a monumental session for the future of our organization and for the things that we did are going to have a great affect on our organization I'd like to go back to Jim Johnson who is vice-president of the state of Illinois FFA Jim could you tell us a little bit about the FFA foreign exchange program I know you were a foreign exchange student I believe you said for the country of Denmark could you explain a little bit about the exchange program yes the exchange program international understanding as we call it is organized both on the national level and on the state levels I was on the Illinois Association exchange program and I was selected to spend three months in the country of Denmark working on a farm now on this farm it was designed to be a typical Danish farm the one that I was placed on but it was actually a government research station and I was very fortunate to have a Japanese boy Swiss boy a German and four danish working on the farm with me so we had quite a time learning the language and in general communicating and i would say getting a real true international understanding now we send two boys to denmark every year and this year we started sending a boy to West Germany and we're hoping to increase the program the national level also has an exchange program which they work out with several different countries now I'd like to turn a last question to the president of the state of Illinois FFA chapter Dan Lehmann what would you feel was the highlight down at the National Convention this year well each year I think one of the most important things in our National Convention is that at the selecting of national officers this is when they select six young men to serve on behalf of the FFA for one year and they will drop out of school as I but their office is on a national level much higher they develop many many leadership abilities and speaking abilities this year Illinois our state was very fortunate in having a national vice president Tom Johnson the past state president from Illinois sought an office and he was elected at our National Convention it as a position of central region vice president and he will be in charge of 13 states and probably travel close to 50 or 60,000 miles this year serving on behalf of the FFA well certainly your state of Illinois then ought to be proud of your elected officer nationally and the accomplishments that you made at the National Convention gentlemen I'd like to thank you for appearing on the US farm report here today I've been visiting with Dan Lehmann a president of the Illinois FFA president of FFA of that state Dick Crone who came in second in the public speaking contest of the whole United States and this is certainly something to be proud of Dick Jim Johnson who's vice president of the FFA state of Illinois and Jim Buck who's a director of district 4 thank you gentlemen the time is here that all America gets concerned about getting fair Farm prices for the future farmers the ranchers in America and save the private enterprise system instead of having the father's farm alone as Senator McGovern once pointed out that fair farm prices can stimulate the cash registers up and down the Main streets of America every bit of progress in history has been made over the bodies of empty-headed fools who giggled and snare at those working every step of the way this has been Don Mack reporting for us farm report u.s. farm report has featured youth in agriculture members of the national farmers organization invites you to tune in again next week at the same time for more facts on Agriculture and Rural America which is a gear wheel in our economy that produces the majority of our nation's new wealth the farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity and the national farmers organization represents new thinking in a new generation of agricultural producers