Ohio’s farms are blooming as the top industry and state officials were on hand Monday to recognize a local institution during Ohio Ag Week.
Ohio Department of Agriculture Director David Daniels met with owners Bill and Janet Stacy of Stacy Family Farm at their location on Ohio 7 in Reno. The farm is known predominately for its strawberries and has been in business since 1899 in Oak Grove and now in Reno.
“I think it is good that (director Daniels) is out to see what goes into the different operations,” said Janet Stacy. “It’s an honor to have him choose us to visit.”
Daniels and his team were making the rounds in the state during Ag Week and stopped by Stacy’s to recognize it as a bicentennial farm, part of Ohio’s Historic Family Farms. The Ohio Department of Agriculture recognizes the many social, economic and historic contributions made by Ohio’s founding farm families. Ohio’s Historic Family Farms program was developed as a way to honor these families for their enduring legacy to the state.
“Our department uses this week as an opportunity to get out and to try to highlight agriculture’s good stories,” said Daniels. “A lot of people don’t understand how important agriculture is to our state — it’s a $105 billion business and provides one out of every seven jobs in the state.”
The Stacys take the opportunity to teach children about their farm every strawberry season, welcoming 2,000 to 3,000 area second-graders to watch a presentation and tour the farm.
“We keep talking about how we’re further and further removed from the farm by every generation and the idea that they bring kids out here to learn about how they grow strawberries, it’s great that they’re doing this,” Daniels said.
According to the USDA Census of Agriculture, as of the last data taken in 2012, Washington County is the home to 1,122 farms, the average size being 124 acres. Statewide, there are 75,462 farms, the average size being 203 acres. The number of farms in Washington County has actually grown from 856 in 2007, though the average market value of the land and buildings was $331,367, down from $371,930 in 2007. The federal government defines a farm as any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products (crops and livestock) were sold in a given year.
A lot of the data collected for the census comes from programs such as the Agribusiness Planning and Analysis program at the Washington County Career Center.
“This is the oldest program in Adult Technical Training,” according to coordinator Marty Clark, who has been with the program for 18 years.
“I help with 30 farms in the area to do financial management. It helps them to see where they are doing well and where they’re having problems,” Clark said. “Ninety-nine percent of these farms are family operations and the owners are actually the ones keeping track.”
In his time in the farming industry, Clark has witnessed cycles. He said he is encouraged about the future.
“I do see, with a lot of these families, such as the Stacys, the next generation is coming up,” he said.
The continued rising costs related to running a farm business, however, don’t make farming as appealing as it once was when Stacys was founded in 1899.
“It really is hard to make a profit because the input costs never go down,” said Marcus McCartney, agriculture natural resources educator with the The Ohio State University Washington County Extension Office. “Fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides are more expensive and there are more regulations, which is a good thing, but (the cost) makes it difficult on the farmers.”
McCartney also owns a hobby farm in Dunham Township, where he sells produce.
“Farmers today are trying not to follow the same traditions as their grandfathers, they’re getting more educated about the impact on the environment, they’re using technology,” McCartney said.
Part of educating the public includes encouraging consumers to buy locally-sourced produce and meats.
“Buying locally really helps the industry so much. When you want strawberries, why go to the grocery store and get something that was shipped from California or Mexico when you can get fresh strawberries grown right here at Stacys?”McCartney said.
Agriculture by the numbers
- Ohio’s top industry contributes $105 billion to the economy.
- 1 in 7 workers in Ohio is employed in the industry.
- Ohio is home to nearly 75,000 farms.
- Ohio farmers grow 200 different kinds of crops and livestock.
- Ohio has 14.3 million acres of land dedicated to agriculture that supports a large food processing industry.
- Ohio ranks first in the nation in Swiss cheese production.
- Beef cattle can be found in all 88 counties in Ohio.
- Poultry farmers in the state earned more than $1.2 billion in production value from more than 9.3 billion eggs in 2015.
- Ohio ranks No. 5 nationally in sales of floriculture.
- Ohio ranks eighth in the nation in hog inventory. State hog farmers produced 2.5 million hogs in 2015, which earned a production value of more than $618.1 million.
- In 2015, Ohio dairy farms earned a production value of $983.2 million with more than 5.4 billion pounds of milk.
- Ohio soybeans earned more than $2 billion in 2015 with 237 million bushels, making the crop Ohio’s highest earning commodity by far. At least 26 percent of the state’s crop area is planted with soybeans.
Source: Ohio Department of Agriculture.
From Marietta Times | March 14, 2017
