Members of the University’s Collegiate Future Farmers of America organization are helping to expand agricultural education in Georgia.

The Republic of Georgia, that is.

Teona Khabeishvili, a graduate student from Batumi, Georgia, is the program manager for Future Farmers of Georgia, the Republic’s sister organization to FFA. She is at the University this week visiting with FFA students and exchange students from across the state.

She was first introduced to agriculture as an exchange student at Esparto High School in Esparto, Calif., several years ago, where she joined the school’s FFA organization.

“Because I come from a big city, I never had an experience before like that,” Khabeishvili said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Faculty from Esparto began FFG, and four years ago the United States Department of Agriculture invited the University to pick up where California left off.

John Ricketts, an associate professor in the agricultural leadership, education and communication department, has helped organize the University’s role in developing FFG. He and students from the University have visited Georgia to help get the program going.

“FFA is like a big brother,” he said in a telephone interview Saturday. “It’s wildly popular.”

FFA is incorporated into most levels of education in the state of Georgia, but FFG is not quite as standardized yet, Ricketts said. He also said the country does not have formalized agricultural education like the United States does.

Khabeishvili said the differences came because “we tried to make [FFG] more Georgia, to fit Georgia schools.” She said 76 schools in the country of Georgia have FFG programs right now, most of them in rural villages.

Though there are not FFG programs in colleges, graduates of high school FFG programs are hoping to change that.

“The people who graduated are so eager to continue it at the university,” she said.

While Khabeishvili’s Supervised Agricultural Experience in California revolved around raising rabbits, FFG students will have SAE involved in viticulture.

Ricketts said the primary agricultural commodity in the Republic was wine grapes. FFG students want to start a state fair concept and compete their wines against each other.

Other programs, Ricketts said, include greenhouses and raising beehives. Several years ago FFG students were starting to raise swine as a way to improve pig genetics. This project lost fervor after an H1N1-like strain of influenza hit the country, despite the fact pigs are not susceptible.

Though the program is growing, Ricketts said the road to FFG was difficult.

He said there was a lot of miscommunication between teachers and coordinators, and there was also an issue of transporting students from rural areas over mountainous roads to get to their FFG meetings and conventions.

“Luckily the teachers and students are so motivated they’ve been able to navigate around those things,” he said.

To increase interest between FFA and FFG for students outside of the University, Ricketts said some high schools have adopted sister schools in the Republic.

“These are very urban students who really have no interest in agriculture,” he said, “but they do get involved.”

A major difference between FFA and FFG lies in the cultural differences of the former Soviet country.

“The first election was so funny,” Khabeishvili said. Students were not used to a democratic election – especially having to do it four times to choose a vice president.

Khabeishvili said students seemed impressed by the trust being invested in them.

“They said it’s awesome because we’ve never had a club like that,” she said. “Everyone wants to be involved right now.”

Ricketts said his department’s involvement was “priming the pump” for FFG students to take charge of their organization at all levels.

“We feel like we’ve really given it some legs to stand on,” he said.