FFA Sentinel

PLAYING IN THE DIRT

BY MICHAEL VANN

There are few things that get FFA members in Alabama more excited than the opportunity to play in the dirt! It’s every young child’s favorite pastime, and luckily for these members they can still get away with it as teenagers thanks to the Land Evaluation Career Development Event (CDE). In November 2021, the Alabama FFA hosted three district-level eliminations across the state in Lawrence, Talladega and Dale County. In total, over 220 FFA members from 62 schools came together to compete in these events.

The Land CDE is a fantastic event that helps prepare students for multiple careers in the agricultural field. Teams of four members are given the opportunity to evaluate four different land sites that include a pasture site, crop site, forest site and potential home site. Each site has a pit dug into the ground, as well as soil samples, and multiple staked-off areas for the students to evaluate. They must evaluate and determine things like soil texture, slope of the land, erosion, surface runoff, permeability, etc. Once they have this data, they must decide if that site is suitable for its proposed purpose. Each of the four team members have the opportunity to evaluate each site and the team with the highest scores wins the event. The top four teams in each of the three districts advance to the state contest in the spring.

The Alabama FFA is excited to congratulate the following district winners:

North District: 1st- Douglas FFA, 2nd- Falkville FFA, 3rd- Florence FFA, 4th- Cordova FFA

Central District:1st- Thorsby FFA, 2nd- Lincoln FFA, 3rd- White Plains FFA, 4th- Pleasant Valley FFA

South District: 1st- Brantley FFA, 2nd- Baldwin County FFA, 3rd- Hurricane FFA, 4th- Bryant Career Tech Gold FFA

While these members were so excited to get a day off from school and travel to compete, there is so much more value that they get from this event. Each aspect of this event helps equip students with the skills needed to one day pursue a career in several areas including surveyor, forester, soil scientist, among dozens of other job opportunities. The Alabama FFA also has a great partnership with local NRCS agencies who help come set up these events and judge them before the students’ arrival. The students also get the opportunity to meet with the local landowners who graciously welcome everyone onto their property for a day. Students take full advantage of meeting these landowners to thank them for their time and resources which in turn helps them with their public speaking and critical thinking skills. This is just one way they are pursuing the mission of the FFA which is to develop premier leadership, personal growth, and career success through agricultural education.

Events like these have been sorely missed by FFA members across the country over the past two years. It has been exciting to slowly bring people back together to get outside, and sometimes, covered in a little dirt!

Playing in the dirt, or soil in this case, is so much fun. These excited FFA members are having a blast!

In order to determine the soil type, FFA members moisten the soil and flatten it to form a ribbon. This is a good indication of how much sand, silt, or clay is in the soil.

There was a great turnout at each of the three events. Members came ready to test their skills!