Highlighting Agriculture

Category Archives: Western Edition

Pennsylvania Farm Show Oxen Demonstration

Posted in Eastern Edition, Western Edition

CEW-MR-2-Oxen demo1by T.W. Burger

Darwin Braund stood keeping an eye on his oxen, Frye and Burg and said he was about to enter his fourth retirement.

He has retired from the feed industry, and then again from North Carolina State University, and more recently from a 10-year stint as the volunteer curator at the Penn State Agricultural Museum in State College, his current home town.

And after this year, he is retiring as chief cook and bottle washer of a loose affiliation of oxen enthusiasts around the country, but mostly in New England. Continue reading→

Diversify your farm products; diversify your outlook of world events

Posted in Eastern Edition, Western Edition

CEW-MR-1-Diversity Kohl23by Pat Malin

LIVERPOOL, NY — What is happening to agriculture on the other side of the country and what is happening to agriculture on the other side of the world has to concern today’s farmers almost equally.

That recommendation was voiced by Dr. David Kohl, who presented the keynote speech on the value of diversification at the New York State Agricultural Society’s 183rd annual meeting and agricultural forum on Jan. 8 at the Holiday Inn outside Syracuse.

The professor emeritus of Agriculture and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech, Kohl insisted that diversification is not just a local activity. Only a day prior to coming to the Ag Society’s conference, Kohl presented his views and got feedback on world events at an agricultural producers expo in Canada. Continue reading→

Dr. Temple Grandin receives prestigious Farm Bureau award

Posted in Eastern Edition, Mid Atlantic, New England Farm Weekly, Western Edition

C4-MR-2-Temple Grandin 3546by Sally Colby

At the American Farm Bureau’s 96th Annual Convention, Dr. Temple Grandin was presented with the Distinguished Service Award. Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University, addressed some of today’s most pressing issues in animal ag. She believes that one of the most important things that ag needs to do is have farmers directly communicating with people.

Grandin finds it frustrating that a lot of young people don’t know about the good things that have been done in agriculture. She cited a Purdue study that revealed that 31 percent of young people have never been on a farm, and 50 percent of people in the UK couldn’t connect pigs with bacon. She talked about her visit to The Pig Adventure at Fair Oaks Farm — a modern, open-door pig farm where visitors can see every aspect of production. Grandin asked employees at Fair Oaks what kinds of strange questions they’ve gotten from visitors viewing the pigs. The question Grandin couldn’t believe people asked was “are those actually pigs?” Continue reading→

“Fill A Glass With Hope” PDA Initiative kicked off Farm Show Butter Sculpture

Posted in Eastern Edition, Mid Atlantic, Western Edition

CEWM-MR-3-Butter-sculpture26by Jon M. Casey

The 25th Annual Pennsylvania Farm Show butter sculpture, unveiled at a ceremony on Jan. 8, depicts the groundbreaking milk distribution designed to provide milk to at-risk Pennsylvanians through the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. The Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association and the Pennsylvania Dairy Promotion Program sponsored the sculpture which features the milk distribution program implemented in June 2014, an initiative implemented by the PDA and the two organizations. Continue reading→