The last two days have been the fulfillment of a long time goal of mine. When I was in Tippecanoe County, Indiana I helped out with really neat program that Purdue University put on that gave school kids a glimpse at different areas within the broad scope of agriculture. It is one thing to read about the machinery, crops and livestock but to actually see it in person is quite another story. During my time on the advisory board for Cook County Farm Bureau I have gotten to help out with their ag education efforts in many different ways. One of their successful programs has been Ag Day at the Chicago High School for the Ag Sciences. Haley Loy, the director for the program and I started throwing around the idea of doing a program at Wagner with all the animals and equipment right on site for the kids to see. In the two days the program ran we have seen almost 650 visitors! As the presenter for the "Technology in Farming" segment I can say the kids have been very interested and excited to move through the six different stations. I'm lucky I have the grand-daddy of props with a new John Deere 9400 combine. My presentation starts out with talking about what you would have to have for a plant to grow and then expanding it to what role a farmer has in the process. One of the facts that I put out there is in 1840 it took a farmer 35 hours to produce one acre of corn. That would be the plowing, planting, cultivating and harvesting. As mechanization came into wider use and efficiencies grew that same acre now takes 38 minutes. A truly amazing change.
