Statement Of Purpose: Florida Agriculture

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers food assistance programs that help provide food for low to no income families. It is their goal to increase food security and reduce hunger by increasing access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education for low-income Americans (Caswell, 2013, para. 1). Some of the current nutrition assistance programs include “the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)”(Caswell, 2013, para. 1). SNAP will be the primary nutrition assistance program of the paper at hand. No matter how morally good it is to try to help reduce hunger and increase food security within the United States, there are still many questions regarding issues with SNAP. This paper will be discussing why there is such a strong support for the program, how it helps the United States as a whole, problems with the program, and why some people are against SNAP.

Alabama Agriculture: Sustaining Future Generations, is the theme of this essay. A few way to sustain future generations of Alabama agriculture is, like farmers they pass there farm and knowledge down there family. Another example is when you go get a job that is related to agriculture like going to work at a cattle farm they teach you what you need to know to do this job. Those are two examples of ways that we can sustain agriculture for future generations.

To conclude, our current way of agricultural life is not sustainable. The article “What’s for supper” has made me realize that if I hope for a better future for generations to come I should support a locally sourced lifestyle. This article is an eye opener to me and proved to me the importance of supporting locally grown produce. Locally grown produce supports the environment as well as jobs for people in the community. The current system takes a toll on every species on the planet. Humans are overproducing on a massive scale and are wasting close to half of our supplies and

The agricultural industry: the farms, plants, animals, and farmers, have supported this great country for so long, but lately we have turned our backs on it. Today, we live in a materialistic society, people wanting more and better items, not settling for products that will accomplish the same job.From looking at the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, we see the bruised or smaller ones left, while the big and brightly colored ones are selected first. In our society today, changes are constantly being made to help expand and evolve the agricultural industry, but it has yet been able to do so. To this day farmers across this nation have not been completely successful in providing for the people who make up this country. In the stores

One of my most notable teamwork experiences was my participation in Future Farmers of America (FFA). This organization helped me develop extensive leadership qualities and personal growth, in which are a vital component for academic and career success. Through this program, I gained hands-on experience serving the chapter as an FFA Executive Committee Member and a Vineyard Manager. As an FFA Executive Committee Member, I gained self-confidence and immersed myself in new experiences, such as learning how to direct events and to promote involvement in FFA. Therefore, my primary objective was to inspire others to become active within the school campus and the community. To do this, I inspired students to share their ideas freely and comfortably

Gene Baur has written two successful informative books including descriptions of Farm Sanctuary, rescue stories, vegan recipes, and the truth behind factory farming. Farm Sanctuary provides one to three month internships for those interested in learning how to raise animals humanely. The Watkins-Glen Farm Sanctuary offers three cabins available to rent for vacationing guests with modern amenities. Each sanctuary location offers space to rent for special occasions such as weddings or birthday parties and all events include a one hour tour of the property (farm Sanctuary). Gene Baur quotes visitors of Farm Sanctuary calling it, “the happiest place on earth.” Farm Sanctuary also hosts over one hundred education events each year often with celebrity appearances from individuals like Martha Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres, Alec Baldwin, Mary Tyler Moore, Emily Deschanel, Chevy Chase and many more (Baur, Stone xi). Farm Sanctuary’s website, farmsanctuary.org also includes ample learning tools about factory farming and the effects on each species. One can also find guidelines on how to care for farm animals. The Farm Sanctuary website also includes links where one can easily contact state and federal legislation regarding agricultural farming issues. Links found on farmsanctuary.org offer contact with large companies, such as Costco who purchase from inhumane factory farms (farm Sanctuary). Farm sanctuary

Baur, Gene. “Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food.” New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Print.

The hands-on opportunity that you gave us will help me prepare for the FFA competition in April, because we were able to work with real live animals. Most of the other competitors won’t be able to have that experience

Without the National FFA Organization, I would not be the leader that I have proudly become. I would be an average student, who only sits in class, rather than approaching various opportunities to impact my school and community. Without the FFA, I would not have achieved so much for my humble community. I would not have initiated a soft skills based mentoring program for middle school students. I would not have organized economic development activities in my town like the annual Amazing Race. Most importantly, I would not have discovered my sincere passion in the agriculture industry. Thanks to the National FFA Organization, I have become a leader, an organizer, an achiever, a speaker, and most significantly an advocate for agricultural literacy

During our guest speaker series, we had some great representatives of agricultural education come to our class. Each one had a different job relating to agricultural education. Although these jobs are different, they strive to meet the same goal: to educate people on agriculture.

In the United States, society has portrayed farms as being a place of euphoria for animals. Big red barn, cows grazing in the green grassy fields, pigs splashing in the mud, and chickens running amuck in the barnyard. However, that is completely false. Only 1% of farm animals live on traditional farms seen on movies and television. The other 99% of farm animals live on factory farms. You may ask, what are factory farms? “Factory farms” is a large, industrial operation that raises large number of animals for food.

Alaska may be the largest state in the nation, but it is ranked last when it comes to food production. The community has become more aware of this in recent years and have begun to initiate more of a local food movement within the state. ------ transition sentence----- With 570,640.95 square miles of land in Alaska (U.S. Census, 2010), the land being used for agriculture is lacking. Considering all that land there are 760 farms throughout the state and still the amount of land being used for agriculture remains 830,000 acres. When compared to the rest of the states Alaska is ranked almost last (between 47th and 50th) in every category of agriculture except aquaculture (USDA NASS, 2016). Because of this Alaska needs to import 95% of its food

Agriculture has a story to be told, plain and simple. As agriculturalists in the livestock industry, if we aren’t able to tell that story, unfortunate things will happen. Whether it is facts to debunk Chipotle’s misconceptions over swine gestation crates, or an FFA chapter placing in state livestock judging on the flip side, effective communications professionals are needed to help tell the story of the industry that feeds each and every one of us every day. It was through experiencing some of these things, i.e. hearing some of the misconceptions in agriculture and watching outstanding youth in agriculture go unrecognized, that I learned agricultural communications is a career for me.

This article speaks about the gap that is present in the field for agriculture jobs, along with a survey about how to improve it. In the five years between 2010 and 2015, there was an estimated 54,400 job openings available for college graduates who held degrees in agricultural, food, and natural resources each year. However, only only 29,300 of those jobs were occupied by graduates with degrees in agriculture and life sciences, forestry, and veterinary medicine. While veterinary medicine degrees are still filling up

Dominating the agriculture industry that thrives in the United States, citrus fruit, in particular oranges, are the staple crop of Florida. The importance of citrus fruit production to U.S. agriculture as a whole is enormous. Within the United States alone, the consumption of oranges per person is greater than that of any other fruit. In 2011, the average American consumed an astonishing 76.3 pounds of citrus fruit per year (Boriss, 2013, pg. 1). With such a great deal of the average American diet being so heavily reliant on the citrus fruit industry, any disturbances within the industry will have a tremendous effect on the food consumer by Americans, let alone those to whom the food is exported to. For the past several, a disease known as citrus greening, has been ravaging the citrus fruit population throughout Central Florida crippling the local economy and the citrus fruit industry as a whole. Simply stated, citrus greening is a disease which causes citrus fruits to be sour, malformed, and unable to be harvested. The long-term effects of citrus greening will eventually cause the entire tree to die before spreading to the rest of the plants within the citrus grove (Allen, 2011, pg. 1). As a result, the severity of this disease has caused many to question the sustainability of this perennial staple crop for the state of Florida, and the long-term potential impacts it could have on the state’s economy. Because there is such heavy reliance on the sustainability of