Farmers 2050: An Adventure to Remember
Broadway FFA members didn’t waste a minute of their 20-hour round-trip bus ride from Virginia to the 2025 National FFA Convention & Expo in Indianapolis, Ind. They rallied around a strategy to win the 2025 Farmers 2050 FFA Global Event Contest, sponsored by Nutrien Ag Solutions.
Farmers 2050 is an app-based game aimed at fostering friendly competition and provides an up-close look at what it’s like to make daily decisions on the farm. Teams essentially farm for virtual donations for their FFA chapters. In total, 95 teams across 27 states participated in the contest.
“We wanted to create an interactive experience that reached local FFA chapters across the U.S.,” says Spencer Harris, Nutrien Ag Solutions’ senior vice president of global retail operations. “FFA programming is a cornerstone for developing the next generation of agricultural professionals, which is one of the many reasons why Nutrien has been a proud supporter of FFA for over 45 years.”
At the start of the trip, Broadway FFA sat in third place, moved to second and then continuously swapped for first place until the competition ended and they surged ahead. “Watching the teams jump in front of us and trying to get ahead of them was what was the most fun,” says senior FFA member Joseph Manetta.
For senior Kevin Lobo-Ayala, who is a first-year FFA member, participating was an opportunity to get to know everyone else in the chapter.
“It was a chance for me to learn this new group of people,” he says. “I loved the competitiveness and how everyone joined together.”
The victory came with a $1,000 award, which the chapter expects to use to help reduce the cost of attending the state convention in June.
McKinney Boyd FFA from McKinney Boyd High School in Texas placed second and received $500. Riverdale FFA from Riverdale, Ohio, finished third and received $250.
Winning was as much about strategy as knowledge. Lobo-Ayala and Manetta explain that there are different ways to win, ranging from selling to saving and cashing out at the end. “We were saving up on cherry pies and didn’t want the other team to know how close we were to them,” Manetta says. “We were all on a group video call, sold all our stuff and jumped way ahead.”
“It was especially fun to hear different chapters’ strategies and how they were approaching the contest as a team when visiting our booth at the national FFA convention,” Harris says. “Our goal was to create an interactive experience, so seeing the students and advisors excited and having fun with the game was really special for our team.”
