Table and Carolina Farm Show
offer timely information
Agriculture is the backbone of our state’s economy and will remain so, Gov. Mike Easley said in October at the Governor’s Agricultural Round Table. The event kicked off the 2001 Carolina Farm Show in Kinston.
However, state redistricting means fewer lawmakers with agricultural backgrounds will be around the State Legislature in the future to educate their colleagues about agriculture, he said.
“We’re going to have to do a better job of educating our legislators about agricultural issues because they won’t already know as they have in the past,” he said. “It’s important for our legislators to represent farmers in our rural counties.”
Also speaking at the round table were Meg Scott Phipps, state commissioner of agriculture and James L. Oblinger, dean of N.C. State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Legislators who attended the farm show certainly would have found plenty of educational exhibits. In addition to exhibits by the College, including one in collaboration with N.C. A&T State University, and by the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and others, the show featured more than 43 commercial exhibitors.
A few College-related exhibitors included the College advancement office, the Neuse Education Team, the Eastern North Carolina 4-H Environmental Education Center, Nickels for Know-How, the Agricultural and Extension Education Department, the Agricultural Institute and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems.
The annual farm trade extravaganza, with exhibits and demonstrations spread across about 1,400 acres at the Global Transpark, featured field demonstrations, livestock demonstrations and agronomist and specialist seminars.
Also included: extensive hay mowing, raking and baling demonstrations, tobacco handling and harvesting demonstrations and acres of seed plots, displaying the latest seed genetics.
On the livestock side, cattle handling demonstrations were held twice daily, and Craig Cameron, Farm Progress’ version of the “Horse Whisperer,” drew standing-room-only crowds with horse-handling demonstrations twice daily.
—Art Latham
