The World Dairy Expo kicked off on Tuesday, with Future Farmers of America day to encourage youth to get involved in the dairy industry.
This year, the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin organized a new initiative to get students more engaged with industry partners. They created a passport students can stamp at 17 of the partner’s booths.
Students must engage with the booth to get a stamp. If they get all 17 stamps, they have a chance to win a prize.
“When students come around, and they interact with that location, they get a stamp in their passport, kind of like a real passport, it’s a very adorable, cute little experience for them,” Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin Community and Schools Manager Erika Schade explained.
Some booths had trivia questions, games or information about their organization.
“World dairy expo is a great experience for them to see real-world dairy outside of the classroom, and so the passport is a way to connect them to the industry side of things, but [they] also can explore the barns, they can watch the dairy show, and they can get the real world sense of the dairy industry in Wisconsin and outside of Wisconsin too,” said Schade.
Students like Alexis Burlingame from New Richmond said they have enjoyed learning new facts about the dairy industry from the booths.
“It’s really interesting and fun to learn all these new things,” said Burlingame.
The Expo also featured challenges and contests for FFA chapters to get hands-on experience.
“It was really fun, it was exciting to be able to really strengthen my abilities in that aspect and just try to meet new people while I’m doing it too,” explained Elizabeth Zimmerman from Osseo-Fairchild.
Zimmerman also enjoyed the networking capabilities of the passport activity which allowed her to meet with businesses and grow her understanding of the dairy industry.
“I think that agriculture is a really interesting subject, especially considering that it generally runs the United States,” said Zimmerman. “I think that it is really cool, and I am very passionate about it. I’ve been in agriculture for my entire life and plan to continue in agriculture.”
One of the main goals of the passport activity was to inspire the students with potential career opportunities. FFA adviser and Agriculture teacher at Black Hawk schools Jessica Markham says it can help open their eyes to new possibilities in agriculture.
“These are the people that are feeding us, there is always going to be a demand, it’s so diverse, there’s anything the kids want to do, they can pretty much find it in the agriculture industry, and they’re always going to have a job,” said Markham.
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