PEACH COUNTY, Ga. — Peach County High School opened its brand new greenhouse earlier this week and soon they will open even more operations to give their Future Farmers of America students hands-on experience for the real world.
"Agriculture is the main building block of our country," said Courtney Smith.
She's passionate about agriculture for that reason. She shares that passion with others as Peach County High's FFA chapter president.
"We started out as farmers, and just people coming over from Britain and other countries. From there, we banded together and fought the wars...but the only thing that remained consistent is agriculture," said Smith.
Everyone needs food to survive and Smith says that's what agriculture is all about.
"We don't have to depend on others. We can depend on ourselves, we can supply what we need," she said.
She says Peach County High is doing a good job of teaching the FFA students how important that is.
Teachers say they made sure to add facilities for students on campus to give them hands-on experience. They just opened the brand new greenhouse for that reason.
"It's important to have a greenhouse because if you go out into the agriculture industry, you see that people who actively work and produce in the agriculture industry have greenhouses," said FFA chapter vice president Timothy Deas.
"Our greenhouse allows us to take plants such as tomatoes, succulents, and things that you normally see in stores, and people who don't know much about them, teach them how to care for them, how to transplant, how to manage them, how to take the old seeds and grow plants for the new year," said Smith.
Deas says that the school is also working on building a new barn right next to the greenhouse.
"It really is a big milestone and big point of progress for our FFA chapter since now we are gaining the necessities we need to make sure our children are interested in the agriculture industry," said Deas.
Deas and Smith say they have a few FFA competitions coming up and some of them involve plants. They the greenhouse is going to help them be successful in that area.
This greenhouse cost around $90,000. The chapter got a grant from the state to pay for it.