How a legacy FFA member turned foundation leader is shaping the future of agriculture and education.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Farrah Smith, President of the Arizona FFA Foundation, live at the Texas FFA Convention. A third-generation FFA member, Farrah shares how her personal journey—from farming roots to nonprofit leadership—fuels her mission to empower youth through the values of service, education, and innovation.
About Farrah Smith
Farrah Smith, CPA, is the owner of The Agraccountant — a fractional controller service helping farms and dairies gain financial clarity and confidence.
But beyond the spreadsheets and balance sheets, Farrah is deeply passionate about supporting the future of agriculture.
As President of the Arizona FFA Foundation and Chair of the Blue & Gold Gala, Farrah proudly champions ag education, leadership development, and student success. Working with FFA allows her to invest in the next generation of farmers, ranchers, and ag professionals who will shape the industry she cares so deeply about.
Whether balancing ledgers or building a legacy through service, Farrah’s mission remains the same: to grow strong ag businesses and even stronger ag leaders.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I am in Fort Worth, Texas and I’m at the Texas FFA Convention, one of my favorite conventions of the year.
Thousands of Texas FFA members are roaming these halls, and let me tell you, this morning, they had a laser show. Big old. I mean, there’s 14,000 or however many people were in this huge auditorium. It was just absolutely outstanding. The energy was electrifying. And my next guest, I’d like to welcome to the show, Farrah, welcome.
Hi. Thank you. Welcome. All right, Farrah. So first things first talked about your involvement and how you got it originally got introduced to the FFA. Take me back. Okay. Well, actually I’m a product of FFA. I was an FFA member back in Arizona. Mm-hmm. Did lots of. SAEs chapter ran for chapter office.
Mm-hmm. And just, you know, went through it my whole high school. Yeah. All years I was in FFA, so. Oh, so you’re originally now hot now. Did you have family before that thousand? Yes. Okay. Talk to me about the legacy. All these legacy. So legacy. So, no, definitely. So my grandfather was an FFA. Wow. And then my father, they were both state state, oh.
So you had some city officers. Yeah. So yes. So, yeah, no, I, it just ran in the family and it was like, okay. We just, this was the family all from Arizona. Is this where they’re all from? Arizona? Yes. Wow. All from Arizona. We had we had farms out there. Mm-hmm. Both of them farmed and sew cotton, alfalfa, silages for the cows.
Mm-hmm. So, nope, we we’re farm family, and so it just kind of went hand in hand. And so looking back for yourself at, at that experience growing up, being in that type of family, what do you think that meant to you and for your, for your upbringing, for your development? It was huge. And honestly, I say even just being in the ag world’s great because it’s a wonderful community that, you know, it.
It, it helped me as well. But just FFA alone, the networking. When you left, even, you know what, there’s just, you met so many people with all the different activities. So when you got older, all of a sudden, you know, you ran into people and you’re like, oh, I, you know, I remember you, you were an F, FA. So it kind of brought us together.
So I would have to say just that networking was the hugest. You know, benefits when you’re roaming these halls and you see all these members and there, you think about like the experiences they’re having right now. And to me, and I can’t, I, you’re your legacy. So, you know, I feel like there’s lifetime friendships and bonds being created like today, right now as we speak.
Absolutely. And that’s, my daughter’s actually here and she’s gonna be a freshman. Oh. In high school. And so that’s what I was just thinking, like these are the moments that, you know, she’s gonna remember back and yeah, I met, you know, somebody here then, then I keep seeing them every year convention. So it is, it truly brings lifelong friendships.
Yeah. And you are, you’re currently, you’re still in Arizona, am I right? I’m, so talk about your position in Oregon, Texas. Arizona. So here, yes, I do. Currently. I know we’re one big happy Fs a family. Are we one big happy family? So actually, I just moved to Texas a year ago. Mm. We reside in Granberry, but I am.
Currently before I moved, I’ve been involved with the Arizona FFA foundation. Mm-hmm. I currently serve as the Arizona FFA foundation president. Mm-hmm. And also am chair of our Blue and Gold gala. Hmm. So I’ve been a part of the foundation since about 2017 and I just, I knew how much FFA gave to me and so I wanted to be able to give back as well.
Yeah. And so it was just kind of the right thing to do. And it is, I love. I just love helping to raise funds and support FFA and our ag teachers. Mm-hmm. Talk about the the role of the foundation in general, and either it could be Arizona, it could be tech to the foundation, because I feel like there’s a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, that watch this and there’s different ways to support, whether it’s, you know, coming directly to something like this mm-hmm.
Sponsoring something or working directly with the foundation Yes. In, in someone’s particular state. Talk about that a little bit. Yes. So so with Arizona, you know, our mission is to empower the next generation of leaders. And we just know we can do that through FFA and, you know, so we, we do that by providing funds and resources not only to our students, but our ag teachers and as well as our community.
So we’re just always striving, finding ways to support our, you know, like I just said, support our teachers, support our students and our communities. So we can always help, like I said, empower those next generation of leaders. ’cause it’s, it’s a proven fact. FFA members are, you know, proven to do higher test scores.
They’re proven to be more successful. There’s so many hard facts with the FFA when you are in that FFA organization, it gives you a step up when you go into the real world. Yeah. You mentioned a gala, something else that you’re part of that, but what is that about? Talk to me. That’s my, that’s my love. I, I had a feeling it was because whenever you can’t give up a gala, that means it’s a good one.
No, it is an honestly us, so, yes. So we had actually our Arizona Blue and Gold Gala mm-hmm. Will be held on January 31st, 2026. It’ll be our 10th annual event. Wow. And so I’ve been a, I’ve been the chair for the past, I believe, five years. Mm-hmm. And you know, since that time, our pr, our past president, it was a dream of hers to start this gala, and she got it started and then she handed the reins over to me and I have That’s awesome.
She’s like, you’re next. We have, we have over 700 people attend our event. Whoa. That’s big. Yeah. It’s known as the biggest night in Arizona agriculture. Mm. And it’s, it literally the entire Arizona agriculture community comes together for one night to raise funds. For our Arizona FFA and it’s, yep. It’s just, we have a live auction.
Mm-hmm. Silent auction. It’s just a lot of fun. It’s like the one time a year, all the different ad commodities get together and have a great time. Now, when I first graduated college, I moved to Arizona. Oh, okay. So I lived in Arizona for about. Six years everywhere from like North Scottsdale to Scottsdale to Peoria, to close to Buckeye at one point.
Oh. I lived in Buckeye, like, so all of those different areas and probably something else. Oh, and Papago Mountain by there as well, like had some property over there. And so I’ve been in a lot of places in Arizona. I like it and I traveled it quite a bit as well. Even just outside of like, so flag.
Staff and all the other areas I’ve been to a lot of different places. I really liked it. So I feel like it’s interesting ’cause I actually don’t know, and I don’t know, we don’t talk about it too often. The the agriculture scene in Arizona in general, right? Like, like give us a little bit of an overview.
So unfortunately it’s dwindling because now when you’re, you get to Arizona, you see lots of wear warehouses and houses. But honestly we have a pretty. Wide variety of agriculture commodities, cotton for one alfalfa. Mm-hmm. Like I said, the silages we have, you know, the forestry up, up in northern Arizona.
Yeah. We’ve got the forestry industry. You know, we even have some special human obviously in Yuma is our huge tis industry. I mean, they’re the produce capital of the world. Yeah. In Yuma. So we are very diverse, even though you may not realize it, but we are a very diverse state with all the different commodities.
Mm. So looking at FFA in Texas, whether it’s Arizona, otherwise, how do you suggest, especially for for members and for families that haven’t necessarily been involved like yourself? Like you grew up into it Yes. Knowing what it was. Yes. How do you suggest people get involved? Well if you’re on the, you know what I mean?
Anybody, if you can just, most states have an FFA foundation. Yeah. So if you just wanna Google, you know, what your state’s FF, a foundation and you can reach out to them. Mm-hmm. And. Find out how you can go, we you can serve. We always say time, talent, and treasure. Yeah. You know what I mean? You don’t have to give a lot of money, but we would love.
Volunteering. There are so many FFA events, not only in Arizona and all these other states. They need judges. They, they need lots of volunteers all the time. So there’s multiple ways someone can come and support, support the FFA in your state. Yeah, I figured. And for the, and for the members, the young, the kids that are, that are considering becoming part of FFA, maybe it’s at their high school, maybe they already have it.
Correct. What would you tell speaking directly to them on why they should seriously consider it as not just another program or thing? Because it’s really not, no, it’s not. It, it is a wonderful opportunity. I, I can almost guarantee you, you will not regret joining the FFA. There are so many stories of students joining FFA.
Yeah. Not because they even maybe even knew about it. Maybe they just, it was the only class left, and that’s what they got put in. But it has changed lives. We have so many stories of how students just, you know, happen to fall into it. And because of FFA, they’ve been given careers. They never would’ve had it without FFA, they, you know, networks of people that have gotten them places, you know, because of the FFA.
Yeah. So it truly is an empowering. Organization, and I can almost guarantee you, you will come out way ahead by joining and being a part of the F ffa. Yeah, and the other part is, is that like, so because of the branding and because of the lineage, and so for example, yourself, you were, you know, a farmer lineage, but.
The, the scope of things that people are able to do. Correct me if I’m wrong, you don’t even have to necessarily be interested in farming No. Or like raising animals. Like it’s such a Why that’s a common misconception. Right. That is a big myth. Us. That’s why we go myth bust for us. Hence why we go by FFA now and not future farmers of America because it’s so much more than farming and agriculture.
It’s public speaking. My daughter did radio broadcasting Wow. This year for, for one of her contests. Yeah. So it’s media. It’s, yeah, it’s media. It’s. Speaking, it’s you know what? Leadership parliamentary procedure leader. Yeah. Yeah. It’s the biggest thing. You’re gonna get the public speaking the leadership skills from this and, and you know, the craziest part, ’cause I know when I was in ffa mm-hmm.
Most of the kids in f FFA had an ag background. Yeah. But today that is exact the opposite. Most of the people on f FFA don’t come from an ag background. Yeah. They’re coming from the cities or, you know, in the surrounding areas and being a part of this amazing organization. So it it, there’s something for everybody.
Yeah. Don’t get stereotypical and think it’s all just. Farming and, you know, ranching or, you know, having to do with farm animals. Yeah. There’s just so many opportunities out there for you. And nothing wrong wrong with that part of it. No, no, no. It, but that’s the, that’s the given if you like that you already have that, that’s baked into the system if you have a, a need or a want to show an animal or to grow.
So obviously that’s part of it. But increasingly, when I think about like these facilities and things that are happening just in the infrastructure, when you think about tech Yeah. When you think about engineering, yeah. When you think about. Supply chain when think about logistics, like every industry you can finance, oh, every industry you can think of touches the agriculture industry.
Hundred percent. And based off of that and having this connection, FFA, the members here really have access to it all. Oh, because there’s somebody that’s been through FFA that is working in. Every one of these industries, period. Exactly. No, that is, and that’s, it’s just, like I said, it’s just not for agriculture.
And that’s what, you know, I think Mike Rowe attended the national FFA convention a few years back and he came out and he put a LinkedIn post, and I’ll never forget it because it was like finally, this is what I’m trying to get through everybody. Yeah. He goes, regardless of your industry, these are the kids you want to hire because they are well spoken, they’re well trained, and they will be our next leaders.
So these are the kids you need to look for. And it’s just that and anybody. It’s a job and it can place you anywhere in the world doing anything. Absolutely amazing. Farrah last thing I want you to do, look into the camera. How can people follow the the foundation in Arizona? How can they connect?
How can they learn more? So, we are, our webpage is az ffa foundation.org. We are on Twitter. We are on Instagram, Facebook at AZ FFA Foundation. You’ll, you’ll see, find us there. Amazing. And for everybody at home, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Farrah, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been a pleasure.
