By Jessica Fontenot

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Future Farmers of America (FFA) adviser Jeffery Yamaguchi had fresh ground to till for this year’s district competition, as many students who competed were new to his class. Yamaguchi’s Agriculture Demonstration team was able to place third.

“I was expecting us to do better, but not bad. For a lot of these guys, it was their first time. So they didn’t quite know what to expect,” said Yamaguchi.

With their combined efforts, Senior Jaimelyn Buenaventura and Sophomore Zoe Tengan were able to move on to the state competition for taking first in Plant Identification. “I’m kind of nervous because there’s schools coming from different islands and I don’t know how they scored,” said Tengan, who is new to the program.

Meanwhile, Junior Kristen Miguel will be participating in the state competition for her performance in Creed Recitation and Job Interview. “A lot of it is self-confidence. It’s one thing to get in front of your classroom and speak in front of your peers, other students, but to get up in front of an audience of adults, it’s very challenging,” said Yamaguchi.

Although the results of the competition were not what they expected, students who took the class learned something that this generation generally may have forgotten about. “I think agriculture is super important because that’s how we survive. We get our food from the ground and it’s just a great way to sustain what we have on the earth,” said Buenaventura, who has competed at the district level three times, “In agriculture you just realize that there’s so much more to the things around you, like the smallest plant thing is more complex than you think it would be. So it’s just realizing that plants aren’t just plants, they’re living things too.”

The students who made it to state competition are preparing for each of their respective categories while their classmates will continue to focus on the importance of agriculture and how it may be implemented in their lives.