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Providing opportunities in ag for members from all backgrounds 

Indiana Soybean Alliance chair Mike Koehne is a 1st generation farmer.  He says he might not be farming today if it wasn’t for his involvement in the National FFA Organization. 

Koehne says he would spend his nights and weekends helping his fellow FFA members on their family farms.  “It helped me get even more interested in it,” he says.  “And as time evolved, I was like ‘this is really what I want to do’ and I had to figure out how I could do that.”

He tells Brownfield it’s crucial for the ag industry to invest in today’s FFA members.  “We need these younger people to be our future leaders,” he says.  “To step up and take our places because we’re not going to be here forever.”

AUDIO: Mike Koehne, Indiana Soybean Alliance

MacKenna Clifton of North Carolina, Southern Region Vice President doesn’t have an ag background, but says FFA has been a driving force behind her intended career path. 

“Because of FFA and agriculture, I found that my passion lies at the intersection of agriculture and education,” she says.  “FFA has this beautiful way of being right at that intersection.  I look forward to staying within agriculture eduction, whether that’s in the classroom, business or industry, or even policy.”