As chief executive officer of Tennessee Farmers Cooperative (TFC), Shannon Huff is “incredibly humbled” to receive the Friend of 4-H Award but says he “feels bad about accepting it” because his company is the longtime and significant supporter of 4-H.
“The award should be shared by everyone at the company,” Huff says.
The Tennessee 4-H Foundation annually honors outstanding individuals who have gone above and beyond in supporting 4-H Youth Development by contributing time and resources to help young people enrolled in 4-H all over the state.
“I believe strongly that helping both 4-H and FFA is the most effective way our company can impact the lives of our youth,” Huff says.
As a farm supply cooperative, Co-op includes 164 retail outlets operating in 84 of Tennessee’s 95 counties, which serve more than 500,000 customers. Approximately 70,000 farmers who are member-owners of the local Co-ops in their home counties are the foundation of TFC. Those local Co-ops, in turn, own TFC.
Huff says TFC’s financial support of 4-H takes both a centralized and decentralized approach. As a company, TFC holds an annual meeting with an auction that has become very successful, Huff says. Auction proceeds are split evenly between 4-H and FFA. The company has also promoted its Co-op Commemorative 4-H-FFA Knife Program that it conducts in cooperation with W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery, where the special edition knife is crafted.
See more: Co-op Round-N-Raise Campaign Supports Tennessee 4-H
“We started this about 25 years ago,” Huff says. “The knives are sold through our member Co-ops, with proceeds divided evenly between Tennessee 4-H and Tennessee FFA.”
Throughout the life of the program, Huff says more than $750,000 in earnings has been donated to the two organizations.
“We are incredibly proud of this program.”
Co-op 4-H/FFA Knife from 2008
At the local level, a “Round ‘N Raise” program at participating Co-ops encourages customers to round purchases to the nearest dollar. Those proceeds are also split 50/50 between 4-H and FFA, and each local Co-op manager decides where the proceeds go.
“The check is physically presented to the local folks in each community,” Huff says. “The people are giving locally, and we would like to pass that on to the kids who are going to benefit locally.”
All these combined efforts help make TFC the largest private supporter of the Tennessee 4-H program.
Supporting 4-H in Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders
TFC’s support of 4-H began long before Huff joined the organization in 1988 as a field auditor. A certified public accountant, Huff earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Tennessee Technological University. Huff rose through the ranks at TFC, becoming chief financial officer in 2006. He was named CEO in 2021.
Under his leadership, TFC’s already successful partnership with Tennessee 4-H has expanded. A new initiative, for example, is a T-shirt design contest. Current 4-H members can submit a T-shirt design, with the winning entry chosen for application on shirts for sale at member Co-ops and online. Proceeds support 4-H projects and programs. The first winner was Audrey Kraszewski of Montgomery County, who received an iPad and Apple Pencil for her efforts.
“We see 4-H as the vehicle in educating youth as to the importance of agriculture,” Huff says. “There is a massive gap in consumer understanding of the agriculture world, and in my opinion, we in the ag industry have not told our story very well. We’ve got a great story, and we need to set an example in helping to educate youth. We recognize the great job 4-H does in developing young people from primary and secondary education into college and then into their careers as they become leaders, whether in agriculture or in other fields, and to help them understand what it is that we do in agriculture and what it takes to feed a world.”
Huff says he’s been asked why TFC supports 4-H and FFA to the level they do.
“The answer to that is easy,” Huff says, “because the better question is ‘why wouldn’t we?’ It’s so obvious as to the importance for the future of agriculture.”