Increasingly, college students majoring in agriculture are coming from non-farm backgrounds. Yet a farm background is advantageous for many careers in agriculture. The Department of Agriculture at Illinois State University has designed and implemented a contest to provide students an opportunity to gain hand-on experience with crop production and marketing. The contest is based upon current pedagogical research supporting the theory that student comprehension is increased through critical thinking exercises and by applying course concepts to real-world situations. The contest was designed to enhance student learning by encouraging critical evaluation of classroom instruction and by requiring students to develop and implement crop production and marketing strategies on a real five-acre plot of land. The objective of this study was to determine if participation in the contest enhanced student knowledge of crop production and marketing. Competing in the contest were four teams representing student organizations that designed and implemented their own crop production and marketing strategies on a 5-acre plots with the goal of obtaining the highest profit margin from a corn-soybean rotation. Student knowledge was quantitatively evaluated by conducting a quasi-experiment using the pretest-posttest control group design. Significant differences in scores between groups were determined using an analysis of variance. Learning was also evaluated qualitatively through focus groups. Quantitative differences in scores comparing participants and non-participants were not significant. The contest tended to attract students with farm backgrounds and a greater prior knowledge of crop production and marketing. Qualitative analysis of the contest revealed that students perceived participation had a positive impact on their knowledge of agricultural practices, increased their self-confidence in dealing with farmers and producers, and improved their leadership skills.