October 2006

The deafening silence

of local agriculture

October is Farm-City Month in Pennsylvania.

I know that because the Chamber staff is busy planning the numerous programs and events that we sponsor and promote each October. These programs and events are designed to raise the awareness of the challenges that agriculture faces within a society that too often takes what they do for granted.

How successful have we been in getting the word out? I’m not sure. If you judge by those outside Blair County who have annually evaluated Farm-City programs, nobody has done it better.

Eight times during the past decade, the Blair County Chamber received the Commonwealth’s Farm-City Award, presented at the Pennsylvania Farm-City Dinner to the top counties statewide in the promotion of agriculture. Stacy Myers, our Program Specialist who oversees all Farm-City activities, might just as well have picked-up the Governor on her way to the awards dinner. She was there just as often as he was.

Suffice it to say that we so completely dominated the award that the state did what most governmental entities do where repeated excellence is concerned.

They discontinued it.

So why do I still have some reluctance to pat ourselves on the back for what others think about our efforts? Primarily because the constituency that we’re most eager to serve seems fairly unimpressed. At least that’s the impression we get.

Despite the fact that our Farm-City Committee has long been energetic and effective, the composition of that group has undergone a gradual change. Most committee members represent businesses that would be considered on the outer fringes of agriculture. The number of actual farmers on the committee is exactly two, hardly a validation of the sweat-equity that has thrust agriculture into the grand designation as Blair County’s largest industry.

Further evidence of an evolution away from traditional farm participation occurs when the ticket sales begin for The Chamber’s Farm-City Dinner, held annually at the Morrisons Cove Memorial Park. That dinner has routinely sold-out and for good reason. It’s inexpensive, the family-style turkey dinner is the best anywhere, the guest speaker is seldom long-winded and the evening concludes with the presentation of the Agriculture Community Excellence (ACE) award.

It should be a night for the agricultural community to come together in celebration for weathering another year in which expectations always seem unreasonably high and subsidies needed to meet those expectations always seem ridiculously low. Yet look around the room and count the farmers in attendance and you can generally keep one hand in your pocket.

Even the farmers who have been honored as ACE award recipients throughout the years are nowhere to be found, despite the fact that they are acknowledged year-after-year from the podium.

So where have they gone and why does it seem that they’re not coming back anytime soon?

I don’t know the answer. But I’m determined to find out. In December, when all Farm-City Month events are put to bed for another year, I plan to invite as many farmers as will come to attend a summit on Blair County Agriculture. It will be the first step toward identifying the real needs of a segment of the business community whose ongoing silence has become deafening.

After all, just because The Chamber plans events that we believe will bring the rural and urban populations in our county together in perfect harmony doesn’t mean we hit the mark often enough, despite the number of awards hanging on our walls. Reality can spark a different chord. We need to ask the right questions and be prepared to deal with what the answers might be.

Past Chamber Notes

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