Philanthropist Howard Buffett says his gift to build a new FFA Center south of Decatur all began with his son Howie, a former FFA chapter president at Mt. Zion High School
“When Howie was in high school he was in FFA and of course for many years he farmed with me in Nebraska, now he’s off doing some other things, but you know, agriculture is in my heart and in Howie’s heart and Howie came to me in 2012 and said Dad, can we give $25,000 from the Foundation, and it was a high school in Omaha that wanted to start an FFA chapter,” Buffet said. “I said that’s an urban high school, no one’s going to care about agriculture, I said its not going to work, and he said just give me the $25 thousand bucks and give it to the school and see what happens. It turned out to be an incredible success, much to my surprise. It’s probably the best $25,000 we’ve spent because it eventually led to what we’re doing here in Decatur.”
Because of student interest in Decatur’s Andreas Ag Academy, the Buffett Foundation is sponsoring facilities and farmland south of Decatur adjacent to Buffet land, for use by any and all FFA chapters in Central Illinois.
“We connected our 320 acres to this back part of the development, behind the FFA building, so really these kids have unlimited opportunity,'” Buffet said. “We’re going to grow—we won’t get it done this year, but next year I said we’ll grow as much sweet corn as you want and they can go sell it for FFA and try to raise money. We’re going to have some of them on tractors, seeing what we’re doing, on a combine. They’ll have their own plots, so they’ll be out there doing what they want to do in their plots. So where we have it is a great location and its part of what inspired me to do it because there’s really almost no end in what these kids can get involved with.”
There is a lot more to this story, and we’ll have it on our weekend program, Midwest Ag This week. But for now, that’s our report from the farm. I’m Stu Ellis with WCIA-3 your local news leader.