State FFA Officers Visit China

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report

With this week being National FFA Week, I recently visited with Washington State’s FFA Treasurer, Hannah Nelson who traveled to China on the International Leadership Seminar for State FFA Officers in January. She was one of four Washington State officers to participate in the tour.

Nelson traveled to China for 10 days with 63 other state FFA officers from around the U.S. During their tour they visited the usual tourist sites like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, but also had the opportunity to visit businesses with an ag-focus such as a wholesale market, a cattle operation, a soybean processing facility, a cooperative dairy farm, a noodle factory, a goose operation and a tea farm.

Nelson: “We went to Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Suzhou and we got to see a lot of different things. We saw agricultural operations which was very interesting to see their agriculture over there. It’s a lot more labor intensive and less efficient than we have in the United States.”

She shares her impressions of China.

Nelson: “What struck me most about China was the contrast between the modern and the history. Everywhere you could see signs of fast food restaurants and skyscrapers very fast-paced modern things. But this was in comparison to things like squat toilets or very primitive technologies and some intense poverty as well. So China seems like it is growing and changing very fast but almost can’t keep up with itself -- that was my impression of it.”

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.