My apologies to Pastor Martin Niemoller, but:

First, they came for the press, with lawsuits and arrests, and the people said nothing, because, well, reporters are obnoxious, and most folks get their infotainment from Faux News.

Then they came for the corporations, and the people didn't have to say anything because the CEOs brought gifts and crypto coin and extremely flexible knees.

Then they came for the immigrants, and some people spoke up, and those people were summarily arrested, beaten or shot in the face and called vicious names.

And then they came for the FFA, and this guy, at least, had his Popeye moment. Because "it's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more."

Last week, a group of Republican congressmen started an investigation of The National FFA Organization. You know, those youngsters in blue jackets.

You can read our coverage of the announcement of that investigation here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

The investigators, Reps. Jason Smith, R-Mo., David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Tracey Mann, R-Kansas, claim that the National FFA's tax-exempt status needs to be questioned because of the organization's ties to Syngenta, the seed and crop chemical company that is now owned by a corporation backed by the Chinese government.

First off, I realize that comparing an investigation into FFA to blood in the streets, to some, will seem callous and backwards. The point, if I need to be on the nose about it, is that it is human nature to ignore things, no matter how heinous, until they hit close to home. And this hits pretty close to home for many in agriculture. While in the overall scheme it's a minor issue, it speaks to the intimidation and sowing of distrust in institutions that's becoming all too familiar in politics lately. More on that later.

Seeing the FFA get raked over the tax status coals hits personally because I spent four years of my youth wearing one of those jackets. I was a chapter and area officer and a State Farmer. I went to all the camps and conventions and leadership events that my struggling 1970s farm family could afford for me to attend. I was in that Kansas City auditorium the day radio personality Paul Harvey made his "And God Made a Farmer" speech.

A quick aside: I had, and still have, quite a different take on that speech than most. In fact, my reaction to it was a seminal step in my eventual choice to become a journalist, but that's a story for another day.

That blue jacket still hangs in my closet, and I can still wear it. Now when I do, my face quickly matches the hue of that well-recognized corduroy because I can't breathe, but, by God, I can still get in it.

As our Todd Neeley lays out in his article, Syngenta Group was purchased in 2017 by Chinese state-owned Sinochem Holdings through its subsidiary ChemChina. The company has not-infrequently been given the side-eye due to that ownership and has had to sell off some property in the U.S. because of concerns about proximity to sensitive government facilities. I'm not here saying the U.S. government doesn't have a legitimate concern with another country potentially putting undue influence on the American public. Russian social media bots, anyone?

It also is a fact that Syngenta has long been one of many donors to the FFA.

Another fact is that in 2022 -- which, yes, was during the Biden administration -- FFA began a specific strategy for diversity, inclusion and equity in its members and in the projects those members were involved in. Later that year, it reported that FFA entered into a new scholarship and community service partnership with Syngenta, with the latter providing financial support.

So, reading through the tea leaves, we get to the reason of the investigation: FFA went "woke," and it's all part of some Chinese psyop to infiltrate the nation.

Ya know, come to think of it, there was this morning at FFA camp when I woke up with an intense headache. Maybe that's when they implanted the receiver, to lie dormant until the day they sent the signal to us all to rise up, start speaking Mandarin and waving red flags.

Or perhaps that headache came from me forgetting I was on the bottom bunk. Hard to know, but if the former, I suppose the good news is I'll finally speak a second language.

What is known is that FFA has, sometimes by twisted elbow, been involved in being more inclusive for decades, long before 2022. DTN's Pam Smith has relayed the story of the struggle for females to become more than a "Chapter Sweetheart" in the early 1970s. See https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Once that inclusivity snowball started rolling, though, it grew rapidly. By the time I donned the blue and gold just a couple years later, a third of my fellow area officers were female. There were even minority members at events I attended, especially from states more diverse than rural Missouri.

Today FFA membership is 42.2% female and 47.4% male. Just as importantly, when you look at leadership, from your average local chapter to the national officer team, females often dominate. You'll see every skin hue and culture you can imagine, and that's been the case for decades. Urban chapters have been one of the organization's key growth areas as rural schools consolidate.

So in reality, FFA was "woke" before "woke" was cool, and then uncool. It had to be in order to survive.

According to FFA's 2025 data, while the majority of members (56.9%) are white, national membership is 16.3% Hispanic/Latino, 5.8% Black, 1% Asian and 1.5% U.S. indigenous. As you'd expect, 64% of members claim rural roots. But a full third do not: 16.3% live in a small town, 12.4% are suburban, and 7.3% are city dwellers.

The organization also has for years attended to the less fortunate. In 2024, the last year data is available, it gave out 1,743 of those corduroy jackets via Give the Gift of Blue. That program, fueled by outside cash donations, has supplied more than 19,000 jackets to those who want to be involved in FFA but can't afford the price tag. Frankly, that's a program I was unaware of until I began digging in about this investigation. Now that I know, count me in.

As a member of the board of directors for National Ag Day, I get the pleasure to meet a number of ag youth group leaders, including those from FFA, who attend Ag Day festivities in Washington, D.C. The next event is coming up March 24, by the way.

These young folks are always impressive and make me glad I'm at this end of my career and not having to compete with them for a job! What is especially amazing, though, is the number of national FFA officers with no direct tie to farming or ranching. It's not unusual to hear how an officer got into vocational agriculture and FFA on a lark, or because of a side interest in some science that fit with agriculture. Now they are among agriculture's biggest cheerleaders. They were introduced to our industry by an organization that welcomed them, nourished them, and they fell in love with ag just as passionately as those of us who grew up hiding in corn fields or herding cows into the next pasture.

Even Syngenta has a long, pre-2022, history of supporting FFA and many other ag organizations. I recall my local FFA chapter received some support "back in the day" by Syngenta's grandmother brand, Ciba-Geigy.

So, the idea that a bunch of farm-state congressmen, and to be clear they are all white men, need to investigate this national treasure of an organization that is suddenly a danger to said nation because of current FFA members' skin color, their ZIP code, their family tree or perhaps even their bathroom preference, seems ridiculous. And their handy excuse that a Chinese-owned farm chemical company is funding it? I call feihua.

Am I making too much of it all? If this "investigation" was a stand-alone instance, perhaps. But my "enough's enough" moment is honestly just as much about the even more-egregious tactics I listed before getting to this one.

The common theme in them all is intimidation of dissent. I'm seeing it all over agriculture.

I get invited to a lot of "think tank" and "ag leadership" events where serious discussions around agricultural topics take place. Never in my 43-year career have I seen the whispering, the cautious wording and the intellectual emasculation of leaders in this industry because no one dares betray even the slightest hint that they've had a negative or critical thought about this administration.

I was just at a gathering of several thousand farm- and ranch-owning individuals. You may have read about it on our recent pages. Whenever speakers bumped up against the need to be critical of current ag policy or policymakers, whenever a discouraging word might have been heard, there was a distinct side-step, a pause as more careful words were chosen. You could hear the Justins and Redwings and Tony Lamas nervously toe-shuffling in the darkness.

In the past, presidents, cabinet secretaries, administrators and congresspeople would have been metaphorically cattle-prodded, castrated and branded by name when necessary. And sometimes when not so necessary. Suddenly, they've all become "they who shall not be named."

A related trend is the number of farmers and ag industry friends who, 10 years ago, mostly stopped talking to me when I, just for the sake of being a devil's advocate, noted some of the concerning character issues, actions and statements of the guy who is the current occupier of the Resolute Desk. Recently, when I chanced to be around those folks they approach me with eyes on the floor, occasionally glancing over their shoulder before whispering some form of "OK, you may have been right. This isn't what I signed on for."

We are rapidly being presented with a political movement whose major tactics are fear, intimidation and, when all else fails, punishment. There's a concentrated effort to sow doubt about trusted institutions like a free press, universities and other science-based bodies, and now even long-standing organizations like the FFA.

Just for fun, type key words from those previous two sentences into Google or ChatGPT and ask what brand of political theory they describe, and note what shows up most in the search results.

A hint: It isn't "representative democracy" or "democratic republic."

That shift is concerning, and should be to everyone, regardless of political stripe. I don't care how big our tariff rebate or market adjustment checks are.

Speaking of checks, if you'd like to be part of the Gift of Blue program, go here: https://www.ffa.org/…. I can't think of a better way to speak up for the inclusivity that FFA has long displayed. You can even do that just in time for National FFA Week, which is Feb. 21-28.

And don't forget to eat yer spinach.

Greg D. Horstmeier can be reached at greg.horstmeier@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @greghorstmeier

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