2017 Farm Judging Competition

Every year, Lafayette County Extension Office hosts a Farm Judging Competition located at our office.  FFA students and 4-H Club members come from 13 different schools and 4-H clubs to test out their commodity and farm knowledge skills.  This year was a great success and we had over 200 in attendance.  Months of hard work and preparation paid off and everyone had a good time.

Lafayette 4-H Club Contestants

How It Works

Students judging corn samples

Students judging tobacco samples

There are ten Categories of Commodities:  Dairy heifers, beef heifers, gilt hogs, market hogs, hay, tobacco, peanuts, corn silage, poultry and corn. The Farm Managers Contest consists of 5 test: Basic Farm Knowledge, Feeds, Poisonous/Noxious Plants, Equipment, and Insects/Disease/Damage. This test is not a mandatory test to be able to participate in the competition, however, we encourage participants of the right age to take it.  Participants were labeled with a letter and a number and separated into 10 groups.  Each group collectively goes around to each commodity and when everyone is ready, they rotate to the remaining categories in the same fashion. After completion of the commodities, the participants wanting to do the Farm Managers Test may do so.  If not participating, they may go to lunch.  Lunch is provided by the Extension Office and included pizza from Little Caesar’s, Baked Lays, a Debbie Cake and a water(donated by Nestle Waters, Lee Fl).

Gilt hog judging

Results

After the competition is over, cards are brought to the Extension Office and the Lafayette High School JR/SR FFA members and the FFA teachers help to sort all cards into categories, alphabetical order and grade them.  Students that volunteer to organize and grade do not participate in the competition.  Scores are then input into a pre-formulated spreadsheet that calculates total individual scores and team scores.  Farm Managers Tests are graded by Extension Staff, calculated and input into the spreadsheet.  High scoring teams and individuals are the selected. Each school/4-H Club is then sent their participants scores only and the winning results. Plaques are ordered and sent out when they arrive.

This years winners:

Farm Judging:

Senior FFA Team- Lafayette              Junior FFA Team- Trenton                Junior 4-H Team- Lafayette 4-H                Intermediate 4-H Team-Suwannee

Senior 4-H Team-Suwannee              Senior FFA Individual- Lafayette       Junior FFA Individual- Madison                 Junior 4-H Individual- Lafayette 4-H

Intermediate 4-H Individual- Suwannee 4-H             Senior 4-H Individual- Matthew Robinson

Farm Manager(collective):

Senior FFA- Lafayette            Junior FFA- Dixie               Junior 4-H- Suwannee               Intermediate 4-H- Suwannee                 Senior 4-H- Suwannee

Farm Manager Individual:

Senior FFA- Lafayette           Junior FFA- Bell                Junior 4-H- Suwannee                 Intermediate 4-H- Madison                  Senior 4-H- Suwannee

Special Thanks

This event would not be possible without the help and support of our local County Commissioners who aid in the funding of the competition.

We would also like to thank all of the students, staff and 4-H members and volunteers that came to the Farm Judging Competition.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone next year!

Chris Vann- Extension Agent- Agriculture/4-H, Jana Hart- Extension Agent- FCS/4-H