Farmers Share Ag's Story in Argos
Published: Friday, September 21, 2018
Marshall County Ag Day gave children and residents the opportunity to learn about local agriculture last Thursday . There were several stations set up at Centennial Park in Plymouth, with local educators teaching about sheep, dairy, crop production, beef cattle, draft horses, natural resource conservation and more.
Homestead Dairy, a large robotic dairy in Plymouth, provided milk for the event. They also presented a dairy truck that taught about where the milk comes from.
The goal throughout the day was to highlight the importance of agriculture to Marshall County in raising food and economic benefits to the local economy.
"Our goal is to help people learn that agriculture is important to them," said Robert Yoder, Extension educator. "And learn about the various enterprises that exist here in Marshall County, and that we're an economic benefit for our community as well because we are definitely a strong, ag-based industry county."
"We cover things like farm safety, as well as electrical safety, which is a really unique demonstration we have put on by our REMC Marshall County," Yoder said.
"I own a flock of sheep," Yoder said. "This is my mini agriculture business. But that is what's exciting about agriculture today, we have both the large production operations and we're starting to see smaller production as well that are more my scale that people are doing to make a little side income."
Yoder said some people are even direct marketing smaller production in the area and making a living by providing the community with a unique commodity such as organic vegetables.
John Childs, Marshall County Farm Bureau vice president, talked about work horses at his station. Childs still uses horses on his farm, and he compared the similarities of work horses and tractors. He educated the crowd about the functions of different parts of the horse and equipment, like the hooves, reins, bridle, teeth and feed.
"Now that tractor over there, depending on the model, is either going to take a lot of diesel fuel or a lot of gasoline. Do we need to fuel her?" Childs asked as he pointed to the horse. "How do we fuel her? We've got to feed her and give her water."
He explained what horses eat and how much they need depending on the amount of work they are expected to do on the farm.
Charlie Houin is the Marshall County Farm Bureau president and farms in Bremen. At his station he talked about corn. Houin held up a variety of food products and asked the crowd what products contained corn. He then went on to explain if they were correct. Many were surprised to find out how many products contained corn in the ingredients.
"We have over 350- third grade students come through here today," Houin said. "We're trying to give them a snapshot of what their agricultural world is around them. Whether that's talking about corn and relating it back to what they see in their home and in their panties, or dairy production, or natural soils."
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