Amanda Holder
Parents: Jeff and Tammy Holder
Agriculture and Community Involvement: Amanda Holder, a sophomore at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo., has spent her entire life in the agriculture scene. Both of her parents worked in agriculture, and Amanda grew up on a chicken and beef cattle farm, and participated in FFA all through high school. Today, Amanda studies agriculture at College of the Ozarks; she is double majoring in Agronomy and Agriculture Business with a minor in Chemistry. “I’m really interested in agronomy and seed research in foreign countries,” she said. When she is not studying or working at her landscaping department work station, Amanda is very active in several campus extracurricular activities, such as being the secretary for the Aggie Club and being a member of the collegiate FFA and the DTA Ag Honors Society. Amanda recently received her FFA American Degree.
Outside of school, Amanda is also very active in her church, First Baptist of Cassville, and she recently went with her church group on a nine-day mission trip to Nicaragua, where she helped run a community English camp that taught the English language to locals. Amanda also toured the Nicaraguan agriculture area while she was there, and she noted that, “it was neat to see the ag differences.”
Future Plans: After graduation, Amanda hopes to start a career at a seed research station. “I want to improve varieties of our main crops: soybeans, corn and wheat,” she said. She plans to use her knowledge base of agronomy and chemistry to improve existing seed varieties and adapt them to arid regions, and create new cultivars in the seed world, in turn improving the world’s agriculture.
Amanda strongly encourages her peers to become involved in the next generation of agriculture; “It’s so important,” she said. “We’re going to have to feed more people on less land, and we need more technology and research.”
