Decatur recruits members for Agricultural Science Department Meat evaluation, one of the new FFA Career Development Event teams recently competed in San Antonio placing 31 out of 68. Decatur competes in 8 career development events, also known as CDE’s, including, Wool, Livestock, Veterinary Science, Floriculture, Landscape and Nursery, Meat Evaluation and Ag Communications, another new team this year.

 

In the Dairy contest, students develop skills in dairy cattle selection. Floriculture requires students to identify plants, judge flower arrangements, and solve problems. Nursery and Landscape students practice maintaining plants, evaluating equipment, and landscape design. In the Livestock evaluation contest, students place the livestock based on market and breeding characteristics and in the Meat Evaluation competition, students judge the different retail cuts of

meat.

 

“I think it’s very educational because it teaches me the quality of meats that are better for you,” Freshman Hatti Shipman, Meat Evaluation team member said.

 

The Milk team, an established CDE in Decatur’s FFA program, placed highly in recent competitions.

 

“Our Milk team was seventh in a recent contest which is a big deal because there was over 150 kids there,” Ag teacher Miles Vann said.

 

Many hours of practice are still in progress and more competitions still await these CDE

teams.

 

“I think the future is bright for our Meat Evaluation team,” Meat Evaluation team member freshman Taylor Jayo said.