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Home > Commentary

Commentary

Future Farmers of America Must Go
By Jacqueline Domac

Yakima County, Wash., prosecutors recently filed felony charges against five youths accused in the killing and maiming of 35 pigs at White Swan High School. Reports indicate that the pigs were repeatedly axed, beaten, and sodomized and then left to die in the school barn. The five students involved, all aged 12 or 13, were reportedly seen laughing in the back of the police car as they were driven away.

The lurid nature of this crime captured national attention, but what the media missed was the string of similar events occurring across the nation-all stemming from Future Farmers of America (FFA) programs, which sponsor the raising of animals for slaughter on public school grounds. The FFA program fosters young people's natural empathy and compassion by having them care for animals, then forces them to sell these animals, whom they have nurtured, for slaughter at the county fair. Because the lessons of callousness that this process teaches have no rightful place in our school system, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on the Department of Education to immediately discontinue the use of animals in all FFA programs.

The Future Farmers of America program was established in 1928 to encourage students' interest in agriculture. Inherently discriminatory from its inception, the national program turned African-Americans away for almost 40 years and refused to admit female students until 1969. Funded by large agricultural and beef companies, including Monsanto and ConAgra, FFA has now become a major component of rural education, operating within the public school system but far enough removed from schools' jurisdiction to make accountability a difficult issue.

As a teacher and member of the National Education Association, I applaud any program that helps students understand the importance of raising plants for food and commerce. But in today's violent society, facilitating desensitization is the last thing that our schools should be doing. Time and time again, sociological studies have shown that people who commit acts of violence against other people have first "practiced" their crimes on animals. With no funds for proper security or veterinary care, FFA programs serve up an opportunity for violence on a silver platter.

Occurrences over the past few weeks reveal a glimpse of a program gone awry:

Miss Piggy, an animal in the William Turner Tech High School FFA program in Florida, was spared slaughter after the young student who had raised her pleaded for her life at auction. But when the pig was returned to the school to await transport to a sanctuary, she was repeatedly stabbed with a knife, and her pig companion was shot to death.
A Hillsborough County, Fla., FFA teacher reportedly begged students to assist her in chopping off the heads of young rabbits. Ruling that this was a "common practice" on farms, the school board took no action against the teacher, who killed the animals herself.
Another FFA pig was left without food or water in a Donna, Texas, school. A concerned parent contacted the media after learning that the pig had apparently been dead for more than three days.

In an effort to make killing easier, teachers advise students not to give the animals names. They euphemize slaughter as "harvesting" or "processing." But like many students, 13-year-old Ally from Woodland, Calif., wasn't fooled by the FFA's attempt to sanitize reality and managed to save her animal friend's life:

"The bond [that] I have made with Max is no different [from] what some people would have with a dog or cat," she said. "Max just happens to be a calf-a member of a species that a lot of people have decided doesn't have the right to live [in peace]. That arbitrary determination just didn't make sense to me anymore."

As a society, it is our duty to protect both children and animals. The FFA program does neither. It leaves animals vulnerable to abuse and shatters the compassionate relationship between children and the animals whom they come to know and, often, to love. Raising animals for slaughter has no place in our publicly funded schools.

Jacqueline Domac taught high school in Los Angeles for five years and received the 2002 National Healthy School Hero Award. She is now the education manager at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; PETA.org.

If you'd like voice your opposition to FFA programs, contact:

Larry Case, Ed D
Coordinator, Agricultural and Rural Education
Office of Vocational and Adult Education
U.S. Department of Education
550 12th Street, SW
Washington DC, 20004

TeachKind
501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510
Info@teachkind.org 757-622-7382