NW FFAers to Rwanda
NW FFAers To Rwanda. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
The National FFA Organization has selected seven collegiate FFA members to participate in the FFA Global Outreach: Africa program. Two of those FFA members are from the northwest. Marilyn Ross, Director of Relations for the National FFA Foundation explains the program.
ROSS: It’s a program that was established in conjunction with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation in 2010 with the purpose of being able to provide collegiate FFA members with an experience in Africa that will engage them at a personal level on the global issues and the challenges of agriculture, food, hunger, poverty and human suffering.
This is the second year of the program. Ross says there is an important element to this program.
ROSS: Mr. Buffett specified that it needed to be a country with a per capita income below $1500 a year. What he was seeking to do is in engaging them in these kinds of issues, really inspiring these students to serve and to think about serving throughout their lives and making really I guess, a positive humanitarian difference in the world through agriculture.
Victoria Marsh from Carbonado, Wash., a student at Washington State University & Thomas Griffin from Culver, Ore., a student at Oregon State University will spend 3 weeks in Rwanda working with FFA’s partner, Catholic Relief Services.?
ROSS: And they will be spending time working on the agricultural project that CRS has going on. So for example one of the programs will be working with the coffee program that they have going on. So our young people will be some interviewing, some data gathering and then doing a report; making recommendations about what they see relative to developing sort of baseline information.
The students will also take part in local farmer schools to teach farmers better techniques. Once they are back they are expected to share their knowledge at home.
ROSS: They will bring back with them knowledge, and there’s an expectation that they will share that knowledge with their peers when they get back to college; in their communities at Rotary groups and things like that; to high school FFA chapters.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
