Fairs are for friends and farmers

Agricultural fairs as we know them started two hundred years ago. They were in the very beginning, have been for 200 years, and are today, about farmers coming together. A fair provided a social function for society, then and it does today. The vast majority of our citizens 200 years ago were farmers. Today, I think the statistic is 1 or 2%. But, a fair back then, and for two centuries have been an opportunity for our farmers to showcase the very best of their livestock, the best their fields and farms could produce. I don’t know when the prized blue ribbon make its debut or the reason that farmers across the country now work, plant, and plan for months in the hope of picking up one or more of those prized blue ribbons. Right now, as I write these lines, over 1,000 individual exhibitors ,men, women, boys, and girls, are preparing everything from cows, horses, pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats to jams, jellies, quilts and fine arts for the 165^th Dutchess County Fair. They provide us the core, the essence of what an authentic county fair is all about. If we are going to save our family farm and farming, if we are going to give our citizens an appreciation for agriculture, educate them as to where the food we eat comes from, encourage young people to carry on the rich tradition of farming, we have to let our agricultural fairs lead the effort. No place on earth do we do a better job showcasing agriculture than at a county fair. So, accept the invitation and come August 24^th through the 29^th to the largest 6 day county fair east of the Mississippi. Come, experience the wonders of agriculture and learn more about it by rubbing shoulders with our farmers. Come and ask a farmer or two why year after year, decade after decade, century after century,t hat blue ribbon has been the incentive to get them off the farm and share with us one of our richest and most noble traditions, the county fair.