There was a story on Channel 12 last week concerning Gainesville ISD and their apparent plan to do away with their Vo-Ag program and FFA as a way of saving money. That idea met with considerable opposition from the community who made it clear that Vo-Ag and FFA is important and not to be tinkered with. 

As one who had vocational agriculture in high school, I applaud those parents and citizens who came out to demand that the school re-think its position. To me, the Vo-Ag program is vital for the education of young men. I can’t say much about the girls because when I took Ag, it was only available to the boys. The girls had Home Economics. The Ag material covered over a four year period is considerable and available nowhere else. Students learn by doing. Although I had no desire to ever become a farmer or rancher—okay, I’m really too lazy, the knowledge I gained through the program has stayed with me over the 44 years it’s been since I finished the program. I remember far more of what I learned in Ag class than I recall of algebra or English.

Let’s look at some of the things a bright young fellow learns in Vo-Ag and the FFA.

Give an Ag student a single-edged razor blade and a couple of stout boys to hold a bull calf down and the critter can be changed into steer in about a minute. The same goes for hogs and sheep.  Students are taught what medication to apply following the “surgery” to prevent infection and expedite healing.  The student also knows how to de-horn cattle.

 A moderately alert Ag boy can walk through a pasture and identify every plant that is classified as a grass and tell you if it is considered good, fair or poor grazing. Grass judging events between schools are held annually.

Land Judging is another event contested between schools. An Ag student can grade land by such things as soil texture, depth of soil, slope, erosion, permeability and surface run off. Land is classified between 1 and 8.

Ag boys are taught how to properly and safely use hand and power tools. When I took Ag, we were taught how to drive a nail with a hammer—it was before the day of pneumatic nail guns. They are also taught to use an oxyacetylene torch and an electric arc welder. This skill is not only useful but can be turned into a well paying career. 

Students are taught to identify all the different breeds of cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry as well as their desirable characteristics.

Since I have limited space, I’ll just list some of the other subjects of study that are covered in the Ag program: Soil conservation, soil nutrients and essential elements, identification of parasites such as screw worms, use of pesticides and granary fumigants, identification and eradication of plant pests such as aphids, bole weevils and army worms; how to prune fruit trees, use of fertilizer and basic electrical wiring. At Callisburg I learned how to cut up a frying chicken (2 pieces of white meat—no pulley bone). 

Every student had to have a project. In my case it was hogs. I went to the bank and borrowed the amount of money the Ag teacher reckoned I needed for the project. We went to the sale barn and bought 15 young pigs and put them in my pig pen. He obtained the feed and we stacked it in my barn. I was required to keep a record book detailing every expense. Once the hogs reached market size, we took them to the sale barn and sold them. The money went first to the bank and then to the feed store. Whatever was left over was mine to keep. As I recall, there was little if any profit in the exercise, but the objective was to learn how to manage a project. 

It’s obvious to me that there is nowhere else a young man can learn so much practical and useful information as he can in a vocational agriculture program. I was no better than a C (at best) scholar, but I still remember most of the stuff I was taught in Ag class. I’ve forgotten where to hang a prepositional phrase on a sentence diagram and how to work an algebra equation, but I can still castrate a calf, prune a peach tree and weld two pieces of steel together. There isn’t much call for diagramming sentences in the real world, but the things I learned in Ag are things that come up in many of our everyday lives. Canceling a Vo-Ag program, particularly for budget reasons, is short-sighted.