INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — From planting seeds to planning careers, agricultural education is cultivating more than crops: It’s growing tomorrow’s leaders.

Indiana FFA, in partnership with National FFA, launched its new initiative Grow With Us, which aims to give Indiana students, like Dupree Henry, the opportunity to learn a wide variety of skills and make connections.

“I feel like I have a very strong bond with all of them, and I feel like our friendship that we’ve built is going to last out side of high school,” said Henry, an FFA chapter treasurer at Hamilton Southeastern High School. “Just knowing I have that support for whichever contest we go into in FFA or whatever event we have, it just always brings me back to keep competing.”

Agricultural education includes classes that can lead to over 350 careers in fields like STEM, business, education, communications, and policy. Henry says he’s excited for what’s ahead.

“I want to go to college, and I want to look into either marketing or communications so I can get my degree in those two,” Henry said.

Ambra Tannery, associate director of educational programs for National FFA, said the program will leave high schoolers prepared to enter the workforce and pursue a degree, enlist in the military, or run their own business.

“One of those things could be someone flying drones and utilizing that technology, to food scientists to individuals who are working with animals every day, or people who are making pharmaceuticals for animals for plants,” Tannery said.

The Three Component Model of agricultral education combines classsroom instruction, work-based learning, and leadership development.

“There’s around 240 agriculture programs serving around 15,000 students across the state,” Tannery said. “The goal is that we would continue to grow those chapters and opportunities for students and teachers across the state.”

Henry says being a part of the FFA organization gives him purpose, and he appreciates the leadership and team work skills he’s gained along the way.

“I have especially enjoyed our agriculture and communications contest and our parliamentary procedure contest because both of those are a big-team contests, and I just enjoy working with my peers to go out and do the best that we can in our contests,” Henry said.