Future Farmers of America Remarks to the Organization's State Presidents.

I was trying to remember how long I've been a member of FFA. [Laughter] I became a member in 1936, and as a freshman in high school, I was very small for my age, very timid, and I would say that my career that led up to the Presidency of our great country began in the Plains FFA chapter.

I learned how to cut a rafter and how to repair a tractor, how to plant an acre of peanuts. [Laughter] I learned how to judge a good hog or dairy cow. I learned how to be a leader in a small group which was highly competitive. I learned how to make a speech. And I learned how to broaden my area of personal interest beyond the confines of my own family and my own farm and my own community.

The Future Farmers have meant a lot to me. I went off to the Navy, and when I came home, my small business, that didn't make much money, sponsored every year a trip to Kansas City for the outstanding FFA member of the Plains chapter. We've done it ever since.

And as I prepared for this meeting with you, I thought about how closely interrelated my present duties are with responsibilities that you share with me. You've already proven your leadership capabilities. Your personal characteristics and attitudes have been assessed by other members of FFA. They've shown that they have confidence in you to lead them as I lead this country and to represent in your own life their own aspirations and the values that they hold dear.

I just came back from a trip to Europe. I rode through the beautiful fields of West Germany and saw their grain crop; barley is being harvested now. They have an excellent wheat, oat crop; sugar beets are grown in that area. And I discussed with the other leaders of the major democratic industrialized countries common problems. Every one is a responsibility of your own. One of the major considerations is employment, the control of inflation, an end to the waste of energy, more efficient operations, the removal of obstacles to trade. And the most difficult single negotiating point in the multilateral trade negotiations is agricultural products.

We have an advantage over every other country on Earth—many, of course, but one that comes to mind, the one that is uniformly and universally recognized is in the production of agricultural products.

We love our land, and part even of our religious conviction is that we should be good stewards of it. We are proud of what we've accomplished, and although we do have some close interrelationships between government and the agricultural community, farmers and those associated with agriculture have always prided ourselves our own independence, our duty, and our eagerness to stand on our own feet, to make our own decisions, to be individuals, to cooperate with our neighbors, and because of the vicissitudes and uncertainties of the weather, to have confidence in the future. And when we are discouraged with drought or poor harvest or low prices, we always look to the next year, and we're not afraid. We believe in our country, and this is a characteristic that binds me closely with you.

I might add one other point. I've been in office now for 18 months, almost exactly 18 months. There's been a tremendous resurgence in the viability of American agriculture, the prosperity of farmers. Prices are up, family income is up to an extraordinary degree. Prosperity exists in our agricultural regions now. This is a good year, apparently.

Last year we set an all-time record on agricultural exports. This year we will far exceed that historic record. The rest of the world is eager for what we grow, and we meet the needs of American people as well. So, we have a lot to be thankful for.

But along with our blessings derived from God and our citizenship in the greatest nation on Earth, we have a responsibility. And my responsibility is no more intent than yours. You are young, still in your formative years, still trying to expand your minds and your hearts to learn more things and to encompass more friends, to let your influence be broadened and benevolent, to understand the attitudes of other people who depend upon us for leadership and for service.

So, for all these reasons, I'm deeply grateful for your visit to me. My successes you can blame on FFA; my failures you can blame on the fact that I left farming and went into the Navy for a while. [Laughter] But there's no doubt that the attitudes that I learned as a member of yours and my organization have permeated my whole life, and, I think, for the better.

I'm grateful for what you mean to me and to our country. I'm even more grateful for what you will mean in the future. Thank you very much.