What do you think of when you hear the word agriculture?

Being a rather stubborn teenager raised in the city of Chicago, the thought of agriculture playing any role in my life was something I never would’ve imagined possible. I always knew that agriculture played a critical role in society, but to me it was just an everyday thing that farmers thousands of miles dealt with.

However, in the summer of my junior year, I ran into a Kalani teacher that happened to teach agriculture. Amazed by this coincidence of seeing a teacher at a local Walmart, we started conversing. He told me about some of the activities that the agriculture club in Kalani called Future Farmer’s of America (FFA). Helping out the community, teaching elementary kids,and competing in state and national levels, I was fascinated by this hidden world of agriculture that I seemed to overlook everyday.

In the beginning of my junior year, I gave a shot at joining the Kalani FFA. Being a rather outgoing person, I started to connect with some of the members in the club. I participated in community outreach projects like the Wilson Elementary School’s Energy Fair as well as helping out a TED Talks presentation on agricultural development at UH Manoa. Working with many professional leaders, I became educated on the many different controversial talks on agricultural business and the future of American agriculture.

Later that year, I was invited to go to a FFA Conference in Washington D.C. with 600 other FFA students to see how other students my age perceived agriculture. As I started getting to know students from Nebraska, Texas, and even from home state of Illinois, I was awakened by how much of an impact agriculture was to them. Every part of their lifestyle was connected in cultivation as well as taking care of the environment around them. Many of them owned hundreds of acres of farmland, and they themselves helped cultivate the land.

Coming back from the trip, I realized how closed off I was from the things happening around me. Up until, I was clueless on how my food came to my table and the work that had to be put in, but now being fully aware; I can better understand the importance of agriculture.