Have you hugged a farmer today? Okay, so maybe that is a little silly, but farmers do so much for us, a simple thank-you is in order. After all, less than 2 percent of the population in America grow the food the other 98 percent consume.
At the turn of the last century, those figures could have been reversed. In much of the United States in 1899, we had an agricultural-based economy. Most people lived in rural areas and worked on farms. But in the decades that followed, production increases due to technology and innovation, led to rapid migration from farms to cities. With that movement, fewer people were engaged in growing their own food, depending more and more on the meats, eggs, fruits and vegetables being shipped into urban and suburban areas.
With the year 2000 as near as two weeks, it's interesting to note that four generations away from the farm has created a lack of understanding about how much the farmer contributes to our quality of life in America. Many children today don't know that milk comes from a cow, that pickles are cucumbers, that a watermelon grows on a vine or that any of this takes place right here locally.
With that in mind, I want to report some farm news from your own county. The New Castle County Farm Bureau recently named the Farm Family of the Year and the 1999 Farm Bureau queen and the 1999 Distinguished Service to Agriculture award. Let me introduce you to some of your farming neighbors.
The Emerson family, who received the award for Farm Family of the Year, have been farming in Middletown for more that half a century, first with Laura Belle Emerson, and for the last 20 years, with Robert and Sarah Emerson assisted by their son, Lee, and their nephew, Charles Biddle. Together, they milk 140 Registered Holsteins and grow 2,000 acres of soybeans, corn, alfalfa and wheat. Robert has served on the New Castle County Farm Bureau board for 15 years and is currently a member of the New Castle County Farm Services Agency county committee. He is a member of the Land O'Lakes Cooperative.
The 1999 NC Farm Bureau queen for New Castle County is Katie Lovett, 17, a senior at Middletown High School. The daughter of JoAnn and George Lovett of Middletown, she has worked on the family farm for as long as she can remember. She has helped with their crops of potatoes, strawberries, asparagus, hay and straw. Katie is actively involved in school sports, is a member of the National Honor Society and devotes several hours a week to community service.
St. George's resident Richard Lester received the New Castle County Farm Bureau's 1999 award for Distinguished Service to Agriculture. A retired farmer, Lester has dedicated his life to agriculture. From 1971 to 1975, Mr. Lester was chair of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Stabilization Conservation Service (ASCS). From 1976 to 1977, and again from 1981 to 1987, he was state ASCS state director.
Congratulations to these outstanding representatives of the New Castle County agricultural community.
—Carl Davis is Extension Agent, Agriculture
Originally published in “Newark Outlook,” The Newark Post
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