Somerset Fair aims to educate on agriculture

The Somerset County Fair kicked off for its 74th year in Princess Anne Friday morning, with the main objective to educate locals on agriculture, where and how their food is prepared.

As Ronnie Haymaker, President of the fair board puts it, the Fair presents the chance for people to come face-to-face with their food source, and learn more on agriculture.

"I think it's very important that people go to the source and learn about agriculture and learn about modern agriculture."

Ronnie gave a few pointers to 47ABC on different crops grown in the region – namely cotton, tobacco and peanuts – and equipment used on Delmarva, along with the various livestock.

Haymaker says there is a lot of misinformation on agriculture out there and folks need to hear from the source how exactly modern agriculture runs and operates.

"They need to go right to the source and talk to people who are educated in modern agriculture and understand why things are done the way they are done."

The equipment on display at the fair is a reminder to how far farming and agriculture have come on the Eastern Shore in such a short period of time.

The tractors on display were mostly from before the Kennedy administration, with no air conditioning, and no GPS controlled steering, a far cry from where we are almost 60 years later.

"It's amazing how far agriculture has come in one farmers lifetime.  I look at like my fathers generation, they were driving these old tractors here and today they have GPS units steering their tractors," said Haymaker.

With concerns over weather looming over the weekend, Haymaker says many of the livestock exhibits and the art and photography exhibits are under rooftop and are going to on as scheduled this weekend.

The fair say's they will notify people of what events are canceled on their facebook page.