Off-Farm Income

When you are young, you have energy, and you might as well take advantage of it!  That is very true for today's guest, Lane Willard.  Lane is between his 9th and 10th Grade years right now, and he has one year of FFA under his belt.  And, he has been busy.  In addition to working on his families farm, he is playing sports, raising his own livestock, farming his own ground and participating in the FFA. Lane and his family have been farming this ground for three generations now.  In the late summer is when Lane really feels the heat.  Right at the time that he is getting his pigs and heifers to the fair, football practice begins.  So, he has football practice in the heat, farm work after practice and animals to take care of at fair.  Luckily his coach, his family and his community support the FFA and everyone understands.

There are so many good things that come out of the FFA, they are hard to count and definitely too numerous to list in one podcast post.  So, in today's post I will focus on the SAE grants that are available to students.  I judged applications for these grants for a number of years, and I can tell you that there is a lot of talent out there.  I can also tell you that there are a lot of students not attempting to receive this free money.  This is precisely why I admire the students that do pursue these grants so much.  It demonstrates that they and their FFA advisors are very forward thinking. Charleigh Dugger is one of these forward thinking students.  She is just finishing up her sophomore year of high school, but she has already applied for and received a $1,000 SAE grant provided by AmerisourceBergen.  Charleigh is using this money to expand her goat herd, built winter shelter for them and start a cattle herd of Scottish Highlander cows for herself.  She is hoping that this will propel her towards her dream of working with animals as a career.

Baxter Black has amazing legacy of entertaining people while telling the story of agriculture and ranching life in his cowboy poetry. Today, I bring you a replay of an interview I did with Baxter a few years ago talking about his is business journey and his key to success.

Since Christmas is almost here, I think this interview is appropriate! Learn how one FFA member is making a difference to children by purchasing them Christmas presents from money raised by the Wilcox County High School FFA Chapter of Rachelle, Georgia. Listening to this interview will surely get you into the holiday spirit. 

On multiple occasions, after interviewing FFA students who have started lawn care businesses, I have referred to this particular type of business as a "future millionaire maker".  It seems as though every single year there is an FFA student who is a finalist for the American Star in Agribusiness that is the owner of a lawn care company, and that is because this is such a strong and great business to have. In today's episode, I get to interview Matt Rowlette, the owner, and creator of Rowlettes Lawn Care.  This company actually officially began when Matt was eight years old, and he was hired to trim weeds along his uncle's fence, bordering 150 acres.  His parents purchased his first mower and trimmer for him, and he has those still today.  However, he has been steadily reinvesting into his business and growing it since that time.