Select FFA students on the Farm Business Management and Milk Quality teams will hit the road this week to participate in their respective state competitions.

“In order to get here, they had to get to the area level contest,” agricultural science teacher and campus FFA adviser Julie Anderson said. “Our area is the entire Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, it’s huge there are over 17,000 students in our area, and they had to place in the top five teams. Our teams were actually first in one contest and second in the other, they did really well.”

The Milk Quality team will enter competition on Thursday at Tarleton State University in Stephenville.

“They’re evaluating dairy products which is a huge part of the agriculture industry, so they’ll be evaluating cheese, actual milk for any potential defects,” Anderson said. “They’ll determine between real and artificial products, and they also take a test. They’ve had to qualify out of hundreds of teams even to get to state.”

This is the first trip to state for junior Claire Webb who placed ninth overall in Milk Quality an the area competition.

“We practice on our own, so there’s multiple choice questions that we practice, and then we test different milks and cheeses and learn the different qualities and characteristics of each type of cheese and milk,” Webb said. “I know there is going to be a lot of people, so the competition is going to be really tough, but hopefully we’ll do well.”  

Farm Business management will depart Wednesday to compete at Sam Houston State University.

“They take a test over economic principles that are related to agriculture, money marketing, exports, imports, all kinds of stuff like that,” Anderson said. “It’s a pretty hard test. In order to prepare, they have to practice all the principles of business and farm ranch management, so that’s mostly just studying a textbook, learning formulas, and practicing the math.

After placing first and second at district, the teams are preparing for an uphill battle.

“I think they have the potential to be in the top 20 teams in the state, which doesn’t sound that great when you think of kids going to nationals and things like that, but the way FFA works, only the number one team from the state gets to go on to the national competition,” Anderson said. “To be in the top 20 is super impressive.”