Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) Visit!

As you already may know, I didn't get to enjoy the opportunities provided by agricultural education while I was in high school. Now I get to make up for lost time being on the advisor side! I've been excited to make some time this summer to visit some students SAE projects!

If you're reading this, there is a chance you have no idea what SAE even is. Just a basic introduction to agricultural education: it has a 3 circle model to show the important parts of agriculture education in schools. The three circles include Classroom and Lab Instruction, Future Farmers of America (FFA), and Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). The three circles overlap showing that you need to be effective in all three circles to have a great agricultural education program. That being said, SAE visits are critical for student success in agricultural education.

SAE's vary dramatically between students based on their interests. Students can work at a feed store, volunteer at an animal shelter, run their own landscaping business, and SO much more to count as an SAE project. Those are just some examples, but students can do just about anything they want that is even slightly related to agriculture. To learn more about the types and examples of SAE projects you can visit here: https://www.ffa.org/about/supervised-agricultural-experiences. Basically, SAE projects allow students to take responsibility of a project while still having the safety net of the advisor's guidance. Advisors regularly visit each project to evaluate the student's progress and goals. Not only does the advisor evaluate the status, but it is an important time to encourage student self-reflection on their project status.

Their Dairy cattle pasture

I had the opportunity to visit a wonderful student this week that keeps records on her dairy herd. She works with her grandpa every day to feed and milk their herd of about 16-20 dairy cattle. For her SAE project she has to keep accurate records of how much they are fed, how much it costs, how much they milk, when they are bred, and just about anything that goes into dairy farming.

Tie Stall dairy barn

Since this was the first time I was at her project, she had the time to update me on exactly what her project looked like. Although she helps with all of the cows, she personally owns 3 of the cows in the herd. With the about 20 cattle there are Holsteins, Red and White Holsteins, 2 Ayrshire, and a Jersey. The cows stay out in the pasture (about 8 acres) during the day and come in twice a day to be milked. They have a tie-stall barn with 20 total stalls for milking as seen in the pictures to the left. They keep most of their heifer calves and sell their bull calves at auction. As for breeding, they do AI (Artificial insemination) and have used natural breeding as well. The student's grandpa actually didn't have many positive opinions on using AI with his herd. He said that for some reason he always gets bull calves and when he spent double the money on sexed semen he still got a bull calf. Sexed semen is supposed to ensure having one sex over another, but there is still a 1/10 chance you could get the sex you don't desire. According to the student, the farm makes enough money to sustain itself, but likely does not make much of a profit. Considering my knowledge of the dairy industry, I think the student is probably correct. It can be difficult to make money within the dairy industry especially with a small herd of about 16 milking currently.

As an advisor, it is important to understand the projects that students have. It was critical for me to learn as much as I could about her dairy production project, but it was even more important to have the student communicate what she wanted out of her project. When asked, "If you could change anything about your dairy barn, what would it be?" she struggled to find an answer. When pressed she said she would really want to add mats on the floor so the cows wouldn't slip as much on the concrete. During our discussion though, she admitted that she wouldn't want any other type of dairy barn (she said free stalls are just not as desirable to her) and she really liked the set up of their tie-stall barn.

Student showing off her favorite cow- Lucky

As I saw it, we ended our SAE visit with the most important part. The student was asked what 2 goals she had for her dairy production SAE. Her first goal she said was to have her cow successfully bred to a good bull. When questioned about her definition of "good" she said she really wants to have Lucky (her cow) bred to a bull that has strong feet and legs by AI. Her and her grandpa try to get positive feet and leg genetics in their herd. They see that as the foundation to a long-lasting cow. Her second goal was to get a heifer calf out of Lucky. In general, she wanted to have more heifers born because they seemed to get a lot of bull calves.

As I get used to my new role as an advisor, this SAE visit gave me some insights into how I want my future visits to go. I really enjoyed learning about this student project, but I see the importance of the critical thinking questions. In the future I want to make sure to ask plenty of questions that get the student thinking about how their project could be better or how they see it in the future. Otherwise, the student may never think about it. Asking what a student would do with a $1,000 or what they would change about their project can really encourage progress and goal development through the duration of their project. I look forward to many more SAE visits, and hopefully another visit to this beautiful dairy farm in Wellsboro!