By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
WASHINGTON, D.C. - First District Congressman Tracey Mann and representative Jimmy Panetta announced the establishment of the Congressional FFA Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"I'm really excited about this," Mann said Thursday. "Congress has caucuses, groups of members that come together and form little groups on certain topics. I'm delighted to form the FFA Caucus. It never existed before and it's important to bring members from both sides of the aisle across the political spectrum and across the country and really be able to focus on ag education in our schools and promote the FFA in the process."
The FFA Caucus will serve as an informal group of U.S. Representatives dedicated to issues related to the next generation of agriculture leaders and students pursuing careers in agriculture, food, natural resources, and related sciences.
"At Quinter High School, I was actually our FFA president," Mann said. "I learned a ton. Giving reasons after judging livestock. That's a great skill to learn how to do. Parliamentary procedure, I use that every day. It's amazing how many FFA members there are in Congress. Forming this caucus helps us to identify them. Really, then we can kind of have the go-to group to work to promote ag education, as things come up."
The National FFA Organization is a congressionally chartered school-based national youth leadership development organization of more than 735,000 student members as part of 8,817 local FFA chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.