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Overview
The purpose of the agricultural issues forum is to present a current issue to a public audience. Students will engage in the selection, research, planning, and presentation of a local, state, national, or international agricultural issue with relevance to a chapter's local community.
District, State, National
15 minutes
Rules
The number of members on each discussion team will be three to seven. Only the certified team members can take an active role in the presentation of materials and use technology during the presentation. All team members must be available for questions.
Presentations may include official FFA dress, costumes, props, skits and other creative paraphernalia. Costumes, props, skits, and other paraphernalia must be professional in nature and used to showcase respect of all cultures. The event committee reserves the right to remove any team whose presentation, props, skits, or other actions are disrespectful of others or shows lack of good judgement.
Teams must bring their own projector and props for the competition. All topics will be considered to be an agricultural issue. Topics have been screened prior to the event by respective district or state leadership to ensure their alignment with topics relevant to agriculture.
Each discussion team will be limited to the following sequence and time allowment:
A maximum of fifteen minutes will be allowed for the team introduction, discussion, and conclusion.
The team will receive a signal at ten minutes and fourteen minutes. At fifteen minutes the timekeeper will announce that time up, and the presentation will end.
Seven minutes for judges' questions of the discussion team will be allowed.
Team members will be allowed ten minutes to set up immediately prior to presentation and ten minutes will be allowed immediately after the questions portion to tear down. Points will be deducted for exceeding the ten minutes to set up or tear down. (0.1 point per second)
The judges in each District shall designate the top two teams to compete in the State event. The judges shall also name an alternate.
The state event may consist of preliminary and final rounds depending on the number of entries.
The judges at the State level shall designate the top team to compete at the National event. The judges shall also rank the top five teams.
The winner of the State event will advance to the National level event.
Resource Information
Topic Selection
The agricultural issue could come from one of the following eight agricultural issue topic areas as listed in the Focusing on Agricultural Issues Instructional Materials (Ag Issues Link)
The issue teams will be discussing is to be presented in a question format.
The same general agricultural issue, topic, or question will not be used in the following three years by the same chapter and or advisor at the state competitive event. The issue used for the 2020 event is exempt from this rule.
Each team's topic will stay the same between the District and State levels.
Research on the topic must be current and a result of the students' efforts.
The topic questions will be shared through the Iowa FFA Online prior to districts.
Advancing to State Event
A chapter is asked to have a minimum of five high quality public forums prior to their state qualifying event. The forums provide the opportunity for a state qualifying team to receive a maximum of 5 points at the state event. Evidence of these forums, in the form of verification letter, shall be turned in at the state event. An example letter is provided in the link above.
High quality forums are those presentations made to community groups that would have an invested interest in the issue. High quality forums can also be with smaller numbers of individuals who hold elected, appointed or some other official position that will be making decisions on the issue.
Examples of low quality forums would be dropping in at a local business and giving a presentation to the workers or going to the home of one of the parents to give a presenation.