In late April, CALS helped welcome to campus over 1,400 high-school students from nearly 150 schools around the state to participate in the 2023 state-level Wisconsin FFA Career Development Events competitions.

CDE contests are an opportunity for FFA members to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have gained through their agricultural education. The primary goal, according to the CDE website, is to help participants develop individual responsibilities, foster teamwork and promote communication while recognizing the value of ethical competition and individual achievement.

CALS hosted six of Wisconsin’s state-wide CDE competitions, with college personnel serving as contest superintendents:

• Agronomy competition, Calli M. Anibas, Department of Agronomy
• Dairy cattle evaluation, Ted Halbach, Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences
• Livestock evaluation, Bernie O’Rourke, Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences
• Meat technology evaluation, Jeff Sindelar, Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences
• Milk quality and products evaluation, Scott Rankin, Department of Food Science
• Poultry evaluation, Ron Kean, Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences

“If you’ve ever noticed in the spring hundreds of young people walking around campus in blue and gold jackets and wondered about them, they are high school student visiting campus as part of their FFA experience,” says Doug Reinemann, CALS associate dean for outreach and extension. “The college helps facilitate some of the state-wide contests, and our CALS faculty and staff have been involved as contest superintendents for a long time.”

Many other state-wide CDE competitions are held at other sites throughout Wisconsin, including contests for: agricultural communications; agricultural sales; agricultural technology and mechanical systems; dairy handlers activity; environmental science; farm business/agribusiness; floriculture; food science and technology; forestry; horse evaluation; land and soil judging; marketing plan; nursery and landscape; safe tractor operators; veterinary science; and wildlife.

Teams that win state CDE contests are eligible to compete at the national level.