PEARL CITY, Ill. - The sight of olive trees as dense as corn stalks in a field is what one FFA member found most amazing about the group’s recent trip to Spain and Portugal.

“It’s like you’re driving down the road and you see rows of corn.  You can see the rows of olive trees,” said Ben Bremmer, a sophomore agri-business major at the University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana.

Bremmer, 20, said he was also fascinated by watching at a factory the process of crushing olives harvested from the trees to capture the oil. 

“That, to me, was kind of mind blowing,” he said.

Spain, which has a reported 300 million or more olive trees, is the world’s leading producer of olive oil and table olives. 

Bremmer was among more than 70 FFA members who spent two weeks in the neighboring countries learning about the agricultural practices, culture and the history of the nations.

The trip is part of FFA’s International Leadership Seminar for State Officers program. The program is designed to develop awareness of global agriculture and enhance cultural competency of student members.

In many ways, the experience was an eye opener for Bremmer, who had never seen an olive tree or knew where the cork stoppers in wine bottles came from until the journey. Cork is harvested from the soft, spongy bark peeled every nine years from cork oak trees, said Joe Martin, one of the adult escorts from National FFA to go on the trip.

At the world’s largest producer of cork in Portugal, the group watched as wine bottle stoppers were made from machines punching the cork out of the bark. Martin said cork is used in a wide variety of other products like drink coasters, luggage, shoes, deck furniture and even postcards.

“It was kind of interesting to see unique and different types of agriculture the students wouldn’t get to experience here in the United States,” he said.

The group traveling together in two buses made a number of other stops, including one at the John Deere Innovation Center for High Crops. The focus there was more on developing new products like sprayers for olives, grapes, fruit and other specialty crops.

Other tours included one at a wine making facility that processes grapes and a farm where fruits and vegetables are grown inside numerous greenhouses.

Bremmer said one of the stops he liked the most was the Mosque-Cathedral Monumental Site of Cordoba, which dates back to the sixth century. He was stunned by the detail and size of a structure that can house up to 20,000 people at a single time for praying. “That was one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Martin said another interesting stop was a production facility for Iberico ham, which is from pigs eating strictly acorns from cork oak trees during the final months prior to slaughter. “It makes a unique flavor of the ham,” he said.

Martin said he was also taken back by the sight of so many olive trees.

Bremmer was the National FFA Illinois State Treasurer until his one year term ended in June of last year.

Right now, his future plans are to start operating a business using drones to spray corn and soybeans this summer and begin working full-time at the family farm in Pearl City, Ill., after receiving his degree in 2027.

Corn and soybeans are grown on more than 3,000 acres at the Bremmer farm, which also custom raises about 650 Holstein replacement heifers for two dairies.

Bremmer, an aspiring fifth generation farmer, said the dairies provide the calves, which are raised by his family for three to four months until they’re ready to be returned for producing milk.

He called the trip a once in a lifetime opportunity he would do again if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Bremmer said he would also encourage other FFA members presented with a chance to go in the future to follow through on it.

“I enjoyed it thoroughly,” he said.