Haskell Ag Laboratory's Career Development Events (CDE) Invitational hosted 20 FFA Chapters and 300 exhibitors collectively over the two-day competition in preparation for upcoming district CDE competitions. Contests included agronomy, environmental and natural resources, meats judging and a newly added forestry division. Forestry is not just a new competitive category for HAL's invitational, but for Nebraska FFA as a whole. HAL had help structuring their forestry contest from members of the Nebraska Forestry department, putting together the state FFA contest, in hopes to give participants a true feel for the division. "We want this competition to replicate state as more so than districts, because ultimately the goal is for the students to qualify for state." said Agnes Kurtzhals, HAL communication specialist and one of the event's coordinators.
The competition is designed to test what students have learned in the classroom to prepare them not only for district and state competition, but as a way to explore potential career paths in the ag industry.
"This competition is a good opportunity for the students to get experience under their belt before district CDE's in a few weeks," said Rebecca Wulf, West Point FFA Chapter co-advisor, "Beyond that the agronomy competition asks them to make decisions based on customer needs giving them real-world application into an agronomy career."
The CDE invitational has seen significant growth and notoriety over its past three years. Going from merely an agronomy contest with 58 contestants, to 4 competition divisions and 300 contestants. The event coordination team has aspirations to add an invitational in the fall with a forestry contest featuring live rather than dormant plants in their arboretum and adding another event in conjunction.
Photo story at: https://instituteofagriculturenaturalresources.exposure.co/hal-cde-invitational?source=share-instituteofagriculturenaturalresources
