Snyder FFA Member Honored as One of the Top Agricultural Placement SAE in the Nation
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 | Author: Kyle Hampel, National FFA
Jaxson Collier works on a dairy farm, but he doesn’t always milk the cows himself — sometimes he gets his robots to do it for him.
“We have an original milking parlor [for] attaching milkers,” Collier said, “but where I did a lot of my work, especially in my later years, was in the robotic parlor where the robots actually milked cows.”
Collier, a member of Snyder FFA in Texas, works for T&K Dairy — his family business. They opened their first robotic milking parlor in 2019, and they just opened a second one this summer. Jaxson said robotic milking is faster and more efficient than older methods.
“It’s pretty cool,” Collier said. “And having that robot option is really helpful to a lot of [struggling] dairy farmers who don’t want to close up shop or sell a bunch of cows.”
In addition to the dairy cows, Collier is also responsible for farming cotton, corn and sorghum. He said his family has owned the farm for generations.
“T & K stands for Tim and Keith, which is my grandfather and great-grandfather, and they started the dairy back in 1982,” Collier said. “I started working out there [when] I was 12.”
Collier said his parents were instrumental in helping with his supervised agricultural experience (SAE) – his father owns the dairy farm and taught him everything he knows, while his mother worked alongside his FFA advisor to help him with paperwork and record keeping.
“I’m not really good with words and typing and all that stuff, so they helped me a lot,” Collier said.
However, Collier has plans beyond the dairy farm. He’s majoring in agribusiness at Texas Tech University and working on acquiring a real estate license to help farmers and ranchers find affordable land for their businesses.
“I am not a dairy farmer at heart, but what I am is a big enthusiast for agriculture,” he said. “I plan on becoming a broker for ranch land, farmland, dairy farms, all of that. … But I’m always willing to return to the dairy and help whenever I’m needed.”
Collier’s advice for FFA members who want to start their own SAE is to “just jump in.”
“You’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help either.”
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