CREST HAVEN – Since the first days of the great nation, farming has been an essential and integral aspect of the American way of life. The United States of America flourished, in part, due to the magnificent farms, and the farmers who cultivated, nurtured, and harvested the crops.
The FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter held an end of the year banquet June 10 at the Cape May Technical School to celebrate this unique program.
Hanna Toft, teacher, educator and advisor of the program, explained that “The National FFA organization, formerly known as ‘Future Farmers of America’ is the nation’s largest student organization, which is an intra–curricular part of many high schools across the United States that have agriculture, food, or natural resources programs. The name change from Future Farmers of America to the National FFA organization was to reflect the growing diversity in the agriculture industry, which would encompass things like aquaculture, natural resources systems, environmental education, biotechnology, water quality management, engineering, and much more,” Toft said.
A graduate of the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey with a degree in Marine Biology, Toft also attended and graduated from the Cape May County Technical High School in 2008. She commenced her teaching career at Cape May Tech in 2012 and has been committed and dedicated to the program since then.
“The significance of FFA in Cape May County is tremendous because most of us know our county thrives on tourism, especially eco–tourism. Our FFA chapter is dedicated to teaching students about the importance of preservation and conservatism of the environment as well as natural resources. The national science class does a lot with salt marsh ecology, marine biology and aquaculture which teaches students to care for their environment and allows them to obtain the knowledge needed to find jobs in the field or to go onto further their education. This creates a full cycle in the community, and we always have students coming back that have found jobs in the eco – tourism, natural sciences or resource management fields that help educate the next generation.”
Toft is the first state FFA president from Cape May Tech and Cape May County. “The duties of a state FFA officer are to help spread the word about the National FFA organization around the state by giving workshops, visiting schools, speaking at events and holding monthly association meetings at the N.J. Department of Agriculture in Trenton,” stated Toft.
“Some other events that we do throughout the year locally are: a fall harvest festival, wreath and grave blanket sales, a FFA week recognition luncheon. On the state level, we attend free leadership conferences and compete in various development events (where the students get to apply what they have learned in class). One recent event was the Environmental and Natural Resources Career Development Event where the team of four natural science students placed first in the state out of 13 teams.”
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