Ethan Hoagland
Sweet Home’s Future Farmers of America took home second place in a preliminary soil competition last Wednesday. Spotty rain showers at Waterloo Park, where the competition was held, couldn’t keep Sweet Home’s beginner team from getting their hands dirty.
“I think it went super well,” Scott Jacobson, the Agricultural Sciences teacher for Sweet Home High School, said. “Most of the kids were soaked through 100%, but they still had smiles on their faces.”
It’s the second year of existence for Sweet Home’s FFA chapter. The students competed against other FFA chapters from Lebanon, Scio, Central Linn, Pleasant Hill, Creswell and Harrisburg. Many of those programs have had longer to develop, like the Lebanon program, which offers students a Land Lab. For the contest, Linn County Parks officials dug out the sample pits. Scientists from the United States Agricultural Department then performed their own tests of the soil. They then compared their results with students’, scoring for matching answers.
For sophomore Aubri Parker, the competition got her out of the classroom and into the real world.
“We did this in school and it was like, ‘what is happening?'” Parker said. “But then once I got here, it was okay.”
That’s experience Linn Soil and Water Conservation District water technician Kevin Seifert said is needed to sow the next generation of farmers. Seifert helped make sure Waterloo Park could accommodate the budding soil testers. He said FFA programs around the state are starting to rebound, after many shrank or disappeared by the turn of the century. Around 200 students participated in this year’s prelims.
Jacobson told The New Era that Sweet Home’s teams didn’t go to state this year since the school’s FFA chapter is still so young. But with more students filling the roster than last year, most of them freshmen and sophomores, Jacobson said he’s optimistic about the program’s future.
“We have a really young FFA membership,” Jacobson said. “I’m really excited to see what we do moving forward.”