Agricultural Proficiency

Handbook (2006 - 2011)

Proficiency Handbook (complete)
Sections
Handbook Index
Introduction
Completing the Application
Entrepreneurship Section
Entrepreneurship Efficiency Factors
Placement Section
Placement - Skills and Activities
Resume Examples
Photography Tips
Checklist
Frequently Asked Questions
Glossary

Information & Rubrics

Award Areas
Timeline
Entrepreneurship Rubric (Excel)
Placement Rubric (Excel)
Judge Recommendations
Awards Review Sheet
SAE Quick Reference Guide
SAE Skills
SAE Ideas
SAE PowerPoint presentations for classroom use

Applications

There are two versions of the English templates, wrap text enabled, and no wrap text where you must hit enter at the end of each line. No wrap text is for Mac users. Questions as to which template you should use? Email us.

Help Documents

Contact Program Manager

If you have questions or need help. Contact proficiency@ffa.org

The Agricultural Proficiency Awards program like the FFA motto, helps you set goals and learn practical skills. The program rewards FFA members at the local, state and national levels for exceptional accomplishments and excellence in a Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) program.

2010 National Judging Results

Listing by state.

Application Requirement

Directed Lab/SAE Hours:
In reviewing applications for awards and degrees, applicants sometimes present a completely unrealistic number of hours dedicated to directed lab/SAE. In a single year, a person working a full time 40 hour per week job will work a total 2080 hours (52 weeks X 40 hours = 2,080). In order to assist students and teachers in evaluating students Directed Lab/Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) hours, it is important to consider the hours a student must also dedicate to school, sleep, etc. See the directed lab document for further information.

Student/Teacher Information

Application Deadline: July 15th

What are the proficiency award areas?

2011 Proficiency Award Areas

Proficiency Award Area Descriptions

Awards are available to all FFA members enrolled in high school agriculture, including special needs students. There are 47 Award areas.

Unsure what award area you should apply in?
Check out the new alphabetical SAE listing tool
SAE Alphabetical Listing

What is a Rubric?
Rubrics are used by judges to score your application. Get a step ahead and score it yourself to see where you need to improve your application.

Looking for Chapter Certificates and free award medals?
Chapter Certificates (Microsoft Office Excel workbook, zipped file)
If you encounter any problems, please contact (317) 802-4255.

2011 Proficiency Award Medal Request Form

FAX # for award medal request form: 1-800-366-6556

New for 2011 - No rush orders, please allow 4 weeks for delivery and orders will be processed in the order they are received.

Also, new item option available: 1 packet of certificate paper and the following medals ONLY: Star Discovery, Star Greenhand, Star Farmer, Star in Agribusiness, Star in Agricultural Placement, Star in Agriscience, Prepared Public Speaking, Extemporaneous Public Speaking, Creed Speaking and Agriscience medals.

This award program would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors.

Sponsor Listing (Updated 7/13/2010)

Application Tips

What is a Supervised Agricultural Experience and judges hints on filling out the Proficiency applications.

DON'T GET DISQUALIFIED:
Information regarding changing the applications

If the application is altered in any way, it will be SUBJECT TO DISQUALIFICATION. This includes copying application into a word document, altering the space given for responses for any questions or changing the font size below 10 points. For fairness, all applicants must respond to questions in the space provided.

DUAL PARTICIPATION:
Members who have qualified to participate in more than one category of National FFA Award or Recognition Activities, e.g. CDEs and Agriscience or Agriscience and Proficiency or Stars finalist must notify their state staff within 5 working days after being selected or certified to participate. State staff will contact appropriate program coordinator to determine if accomodations for dual participation can be arranged. Under no circumstances will the accommodation impact the published schedule, overall integrity of the event or other participants' ability to be fairly evaluated.

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Microsoft Office is no longer supporting versions lower than Microsoft Office 2000. Due to that, we are requiring software to be Microsoft Office 2000. Some of the capabilities may work with Microsoft Office 97; however, we can not guarantee it. In order for the calculations to work you should recommend schools upgrade their software to the version 2000.

WHOLE NUMBERS (New Feature)
Every cell that has a monetary value. To avoid corruption of calculations we have put a warning on every monetary value cell to only put WHOLE NUMBERS, no decimals. If a decimal point or accidental space is entered, the warning box will pop up.

Applications not showing a zero in the cells that hold numbers.
Due to the new calculation that only allows "Whole Numbers" to be entered, the zeros do not show up in the number cells. This is across the board and all applications will appear the same.