SECTION C
AGRICULTURE
BENCHMARKS EDITION March 22, 2019
www.g reenevillesun.com
Page 2
The Greeneville Sun Benchmarks Edition
GreenevilleSun.com
Friday, March 22, 2019
UT Research Center Shifts Focus From Tobacco To Other Studies BY BIANCA MARAIS SUN CONTRIBUTOR Walking through the hallways of the University of Tennessee Research and Education Center at Greeneville, photographs of tobacco line the walls. There, much like the abandoned tobacco warehouses in downtown Greeneville, the decline of a once prosperous industry is evident. Since 1932 the center has produced tobacco, but in 2018, only about four acres of tobacco was grown in nurseries exclusively for research purposes. “We have significantly declined in production since about 2004,” Melody Rose, of the UT Extension Office in Greene County, said of tobacco farmers in the county. “We are changing focus here at the center,” Rob Ellis, director of the center in Greeneville, said in 2018. “We will have about four acres of harvested tobacco this year due to the change in research.” He continued: “It is a process. We cannot just make the switch immediately.It is going to be a long process of finding the right niche that we fit in and then it will be a while before we start our research.” Ellis said tobacco farmers today are a fraction of how many there used to be about 15 years ago.
GRAZING STUDY LAUNCHES Cory Malone, farm manager at the center, wants to remember the years tobacco flourished in Greene County while steering the center into a new era with a Biodiversity Grazing Trial and boosting cattle research. “I’m not going to say we’ve stopped doing it, because we are still doing some tobacco research, but it is very minimal,” Malone said in August 2018. Of the 10 agricultural research centers peppered throughout the state, Greeneville’s campus is the only one actively conducting biodiversity grazing research.
SUN FILE PHOTO
Cory Malone refers to his grazing map as part of a new study at the UT Research and Education Center in Greeneville.
Malone said this is due to the relevance of the trial to the area, and the availability of grant money. “Each professor that wants to do research has to bring in money for it, so if he can bring in enough money to do it in multiple locations, that’s great because you can see how it does in different regions of the state,” Malone said. “That’s the way it used to be with tobacco. Now, the little research with tobacco that we do is all nurseries. We’re crossing, and trying to build resistance to black shank, that’s all we’re doing.” Malone said he is excited about the changes. “We are very seriously moving in this direction and it’s kind of exciting, but I’m anxious to see how big it can get, because Greene County is number one in the state for beef production and I would like this center to mimic that,” he said. Malone added that the former dean of the UT Institute of Agriculture, William F. “Bill” Brown, had a clear vision for the study of cattle reproduction by means of
artificial insemination and that the Greeneville center could be the new face of genomics research. It was Brown who made the call to minimize the tobacco research at the Greeneville center. “Everybody needs an adjustment period. We’re in ours right now. This is the first year that we don’t have to worry about chopping up tobacco,” Malone said last year. Malones hopes to see beef cattle research become the new frontier for the center. The Biodiversity Grazing Trial faces two objectives: to evaluate establishment, persistence, flowering, seed-set and utilizing cattle of diverse forbs/legume mix over seeded into establish native warm season grasses, and to evaluate grazing and regrowth of these mixtures of forbs/legumes in native warm season grasses, Malone said. Malone defined forbs as a “flowering plant that can be used as a forage other than just grass.” Legumes, he said, are any plants that enhance the soil.
Benchmarks C Story Index UT Research Center Shifts Focus From Tobacco To Other Research ...............................2 Marketing Innovation Has Helped Some Dairies, But Struggle Continues ......................3 Orr: Greene Beef Producers Focusing On ‘Inputs’ For Profitability .................................4 Tobacco Farming Impacted By Society, Science & Government ......................................5 Farmers Markets Prep for New Vendors ...........................................................................6 30th Farm-City Banquet Celebrates Greene County Agriculture .................................... 8
“We have 11 steers on this grazing trial. Basically, we have native warm season grasses and they are in three-acre paddocks. There is Big Bluestem and Indian Grass in one paddock, and in another paddock there’s just switchgrass and we have established these different forbs and legumes into those paddocks to see a couple different things,” Malone said. “One of them is how those steers will graze them.” The center is also researching how a harvester would affect the growth levels in a switchgrass paddock away from the cattle. “We will cut different plots in there at different heights and see how cutting them at three inches will affect the regrowth and how cutting them at eight inches will affect the regrowth,” Malone said. Professor Pat Keyser, lead researcher on the trial, believes that repeatedly cutting the grasses down to three inches will eventually kill the stand, Malone said. “The idea with this a few years back was, can a pro-
ducer implement this into his grazing plan and kind of fill that summer forage gap where you don’t have a lot of forage growing?” Malone said. “These are grasses that will take off in the summer. With that, you’ve got two things: the cost of the seed is high and the maintenance — you can’t let them over-graze it. You’ve got to constantly keep an eye on it. With this study, I mean, if you can take it down to three inches, that’s no different than producers letting their cattle take down their fescues two or three inches.” Malone said a 50-pound bag of fescue seed would, in his opinion, cover a two-acre plot of land. That was not the case int the trial, though. “People believe in different seeding-rates. There’s a threshold there. After you reach a certain seeding-rate, you’re wasting money,” Malone said. “Only so many of those seeds are going to germinate anyway. So, if you’re calling for 25 pound an acre, and you put 30 pound an acre, you’re wasting 5 pound an acre.”
“We have a total of 11 steers in the program, but we only have four in the grazing paddocks for the grazing pressure because we don’t want to let it get below a certain level,” Malone said. There are five grazing treatments in this trial within the 20 individual paddocks. The treatments are no rest, early rest, middle rest, late rest, and no graze. “Rest” indicates the amount of grazing implemented in the section of the trial. The trial protocol indicated to Malone the exact dates to open and close off the sections of the trail. The “no rest” sections are open for the entire duration of the study. Malone said that when the trial started, the steers had access to everything except for the “no graze” sections, which would remain roped off for the entirety of the trial. After grazing for two weeks, Malone closed off the “early rest” sections. After yet another two weeks, Malone closed the “middle rest” sections and re-opened the “early rest” sections. Another two weeks would pass before Malone opened the “middle rest” paddocks, just to close the “late rest” paddocks. Dr. Pat Keyser, the lead researcher, gathered forage samples throughout the entire trial to get a feel of how the grazing pressure has affected the growth of the specimens planted at the beginning of the trial. “Little work has been done to evaluate the efficiency of establishment or persistence under grazing of forbs and legumes and forbs and legumes being recommended,” Malone said. “We are actually going to see if the USDA will come out and look at this. I think Dr. Pat Keyser, the goal for him, was to make them aware that this can be done, look at this. We really probably need to be pushing this.” Malone hopes this trial will draw the attention of the USDA and other agricultural organizations so as to procure more grant money for future projects.
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GreenevilleSun.com
Friday, March 22, 2019
The Greeneville Sun Benchmarks Edition
Page 3
Marketing Innovation Has Helped Some Dairies; Struggle Continues BY CAMERON JUDD SUN COLUMNIST Greene County dairy farms continued to face a challenged industry throughout 2018, some surviving through innovation in how they market their product and some getting out of dairy completely. Creation of the Appalachian Dairy Farmers Cooperative has given some dairymen the ability to hold on for now despite a choice by a milk buyer company to cease purchasing milk from several Tennessee farmers. Even so, dairy farms in general still struggle. Those struggles have a strongly personal aspect for many farmers. When Bobby Campbell of the Limestone-Clear Springs area thinks about his life as a dairy farmer, for example, family history is part of what he ponders. “My dad was in this. His dad was in it,” he said of his dairy business. Campbell himself has been “in it” pretty much all his life. He has so far survived the blow that struck many dairymen last year when Dean Foods ceased buying milk from several Tennessee farmers, prompting those farmers to seek new options. The result was formation of the Appalachian Dairy Farmers Cooperative, of which Campbell is a part. The cooperative is just what is sounds like: dairy farmers working cooperatively to route their product to the market. Campbell sees value in the coop approach, which has allowed him to continue another year as a dairyman. Underlying issues in American dairy farming, though, still make the work challenging and prospects difficult. Optimism comes hard. Can Campbell continue as a dairy farmer in the long run? “The way it looks now, it’s probably going to be kind of short-lived,” he said. Campbell has asked tough questions of himself and the dairy industry in general. One thing has served to remind him that problems experienced in Greene County’s dairy industry do not evidence problems with only one area’s farmers or practices, he noted. “When I hear that nearly 600 dairies in Wisconsin went out of business in 2018, I know it isn’t just a problem in this area,” he said in mid-March.
SUN FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL S. RENEAU
Dairy farmers in the region formed a new co-operative to help sell their milk. The new co-op comes as low demand and a changing market put some area dairies in danger.
Indeed, local and regional dairy problems are widely perceived here as manifestations of far broader, longer-term nationwide issues. Dairy prices were at an alltime high as recently as 2014. Producers made more milk than the market needed and when the commodity price fell, dairy farmers took a hit. Dean Foods reacted by cutting contracts, saying that supply was outpacing demand. Local dairy farmers say that smaller, family-run dairies like those typical of Northeast Tennessee can’t compete with large factory dairies in the Midwest U.S., which can supply a whole milk tanker’s worth of fluid milk at once. Operations here aren’t large enough to do that. Campbell said of that single-tanker issue: “What’s ideal for the companies is for you to be big enough to fill an entire tanker yourself, because they only have to deal with one sample then.” Milk companies are required to take analytical samples of milk sent to them. Campell Dairy Farm, Bobby Campbell’s operation, is among the many in this area that simply aren’t big enough to singlehandedly supply full tankers of milk. Campbell has about 135 cows being milked, though his overall herd is more like 300 to 350
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cattle, which includes steers and other “dry” cattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that a dairy cooperative business is owned, operated and controlled by the dairy farmers who benefit from its services. Members finance the cooperative and share in profits it earns in proportion to the volume of milk they market through their cooperative. Dairy cooperatives peaked in the mid-1940s, according to USDA records. The number of cooperatives have dropped so much in recent years that the last time they were comprehensively surveyed was in 2002. Though dairy cooperatives represented 13 percent of all agricultural marketing cooperatives in 2002, the total number of dairy co-ops are significantly lower since the mid-1940s, which made up 30 percent. The number of milk producers who are members of dairy cooperatives, according to USDA reports, has plummeted since the 1950s, with 61,390 in 2002 compared to the 777,000 in the 1950s. On the other hand, reports indicate that the physical volume of milk handled by dairy cooperatives has spiked from roughly 31 billion pounds in the mid-1930s to about 144 billion pounds in
2002. That means a single cooperative would handle an average of 736 million pounds of milk in 2002 and only 14 million pounds in the mid-1930s. Advances in technology and also the growing population are what are driving those changes. In 2002, 56 percent of U.S. dairy cooperatives were categorized as small cooperatives, handling less than 50 million pounds of milk annually. Milk spoils quickly and is moved from farm to market almost always on a daily basis. The timeline of milk production, along with difficult marketing conditions and decreasing demand, led dairy farmers to start co-ops as a way to market local dairy products. Federal Milk Marketing Orders were first authorized under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, according to the USDA. These federal orders require regulated milk processors to pay a minimum price for milk, among other rules. Today, there are 11 federal milk marketing orders, with Greene County falling under the Appalachian Federal Order number five. Dairy cooperatives are obligated to pool prices, but they are not obligated to pay producers the blend price, according to a UT Extension report. Dairy cooper-
atives commonly re-blend when paying members. Cooperatives may legally manufacture dairy products, market raw milk to handlers in different markets and divide all milk revenues among producers. Pool prices are the capital dairy processors pay, and blending is when a cooperative takes all the money pooled from the farmers and divides it back among the cooperative members. According to a UT Extension report, due to milk buyers refusing to pay a single high, flat price for all milk, especially milk in excess of fluid needs, dairy cooperatives tried to replace “flat pricing” with “classified pricing” and “pooling” in the 1920s. This means the cooperative determines how much to pay its members for their milk instead of counting on the federal government to regulate it. Lanny Love, another local dairy farmer, has almost entirely backed out of the dairy business for all the same reasons affecting other dairy operations. Margins are so tight for Northeast Tennessee dairies now that dairy farmers “have to round every corner” off costs, “and then some,” Love said. He noted in a recent phone interview that he knew of a dairy operation that “went out just two or three weeks ago.” Love said there are fewer than 30 dairies in Greene County at this point. Only a few years back there were about 140 to 150. Even dropping out of the dairy business generates problems, Love noted. There are cattle that have to be sold at a time that “there is no demand for replacement heifers,” not to mention dairy equipment that also must be disposed of. Greene County Extension Agent Milton Orr in a recent interview voiced admiration for dairy farmers who have managed to hang in as long as Greene County’s surviving dairies have. That they have done so at a time their business brings them less and less money is evidence of their skill as managers, Orr said. Some dairy farmers have had to make a shift partially or fully to raising beef in order to maintain sufficient profitability, Orr said, adding that, in today’s world of agriculture, smaller farmers of all types usually have to have another job to supplement farming income.
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Page 4
The Greeneville Sun Benchmarks Edition
GreenevilleSun.com
Friday, March 22, 2019
Orr: Greene Beef Producers Focusing On ‘Inputs’ For Profitability BY CAMERON JUDD SUN COLUMNIST In looking at beef prices over recent months, Greene County Extension Service Agent Milton Orr said in a recent interview that “Beef prices are not as good as everybody would like, but certainly not bad.” Much depends upon keeping a broad enough perspective, Orr’s comments indicated. “We all got spoiled a few years ago when we saw $3 calves and $3.50 calves. Today the same calf is worth about $1.50 a pound instead of $3.50. What we fail to remember, though, is that, just prior to those $3.50 calves, that calf was worth about 80 cents a pound.” Further, Orr sees some good things out there on the beef farm. “The cost of inputs” may be “one of the brighter points” of the beef industry over the past year, he said. By inputs, he means the cost side of the equation in raising beef cattle. Costs of animal production have “remained relatively flat,” he said. So profitability margins can still be maintained or even enhanced through good management on the inputs side. This kind of adjustability is one factor that has caused Tennessee beef production to outpace the dairy industry in the past few years, according to Orr. Most dairy cattle raised are in confinement and are usually fed mechanically harvested feed, and “anytime we do anything with a machine it makes it more expensive. So we’re looking at silage — probably corn silage — for a lot of these production dairy animals. And feed cost certainly is a big, big, big expense for dairy,” he said. For beef cattle, though “feeding is more oriented toward forage and less toward concentrates,” Orr said. But don’t count dairy out, he emphasized. “We still have several dairies in the county — dairy is not gone by any means,” Orr said. “And as you look around, you have to applaud these guys for being really good managers, because they are probably paying more for resources than what they paid over the past three, four, five years, even while receiving significantly less.” Such surviving dairies are the resilient members of a shrinking pack. In a county where there once were 140 to 150 dairies, there are now fewer than 40, Orr noted. Beef farming now holds the leading spot in Greene
County agriculture, with about $50 million of the roughly $70 million in local economic impact from agriculture coming from beef production. Orr said that beef is the “number-one farm product in Tennessee and Greene County is number one in number of cattle and calves.” According to an article by James B. Neel, professor of animal science at the University of Tennessee, the Tennessee beef industry on the whole is “locally owned by family farmers. According to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, 97 percent of the nation’s cattle farms are family owned, and 42 percent have been in the same family for more than 50 years.” Neel’s article further states: “Tennessee is one of the top beef-producing states in the nation. Tennessee ranks ninth in the nation in beef cow numbers and 15th in total cattle. Tennessee exceeds all states east of the Mississippi, except Kentucky, in numbers of cattle. “Only Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma have more cow-calf operations than Tennessee. More than 2.13 million cattle in Tennessee are valued at slightly more than $1.62 billion. Fifty-one percent of these cattle, or 1.2 million, are beef cows.” Orr noted that advancing technology is doing much to help beef producers. In particular, a state program called Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program is lending farmers a hand on reducing costs on that all-important “input” side of the farm profitability equation. TAEP helps put farming technology, infrastructure and even livestock within easier financial reach for farmers through cost-sharing. Orr said that TAEP “will cost-share on qualified buyers on bulls, heifers, building hay barns, purchasing handling equipment, feed storages, things like that.” The program originated out of tobacco settlement money several years ago, and when those funds ran out, “the governor kept it in the budget because it was working,” Orr said. Cattle that come through the TAEP program must undergo genomic testing, Orr said. This refers to analysis of DNA to ensure that cattle are of high quality. This analysis does not, he said, involve manipulation or changing of DNA. “We’re not changing the DNA at all. The testing doesn’t change what’s there, it simply finds out what is there.”
SUN FILE PHOTO
Dr. Andrew Griffith hosted a seminar on price and profit management in beef operations at the Northeast Tennessee Beef Expo in October 2018.
Information thus gained can predict for beef producers an individual cow’s
propensity for growth, temperament, various health factors and so on. This helps
producers maintain the best quality herds and promotes efficiency in beef produc-
tion. “I can pull hair samples from a calf that’s two days old, and send it off, and tell you what kind of chance that calf has,” Orr said. “If we can produce beef that you as a consumer can afford to buy, and instead of costing $3 a pound to produce a $3.50-a-pound product, if we can produce that for $2.50 or $2.75 a pound, then we are increasing the bottom line for the business without being a burden on the consumer. What we’ve done is whittle off the input side.” The bottom line for Greene County beef production sums up as follows, in Orr’s words: “The more efficient we can make farmers, the longer they can stay in business.”
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GreenevilleSun.com
Friday, March 22, 2019
The Greeneville Sun Benchmarks Edition
Page 5
Tobacco Farming Impacted By Society, Science, Government BY CAMERON JUDD SUN COLUMNIST Any list of major Northeast Tennessee agricultural change areas over the past several decades would have to include tobacco high on the list. A drive through Greene County during growing season still reveals plots of ground growing the crop that is one of the identifying marks of the Northeast Tennessee landscape, and tobacco barns still stand with the richly brown leaves drying inside. Even so, the growing and marketing of the product is not what it was for generations of past Greene Countians. Long gone are the government-guaranteed minimum prices and crop allotments. Paragraphs from a 2005 report from the Congressional Research Service summarize the heart of that story: “the federal tobacco price support program was designed to support and stabilize prices for farmers. It operated through a combination of mandatory marketing quotas and non-recourse loans.” The phrase “non-recourse loans” refers to a type of loan that, in cases of default, results in no additional recourse being taken against borrowers beyond taking ownership of the collateral. The collateral is accepted as full settlement of the debt. The CRS report continues: “Marketing quotas limited the amount of tobacco each farmer could sell, which indirectly raised market prices. The loan program established guaranteed minimum prices. “The law required that the loan program operate at no net cost to the federal government.” The 2004 tobacco crop was the last crop eligible
for federal support, as the program “was terminated by P.L. 108-357, Title VI, the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004.” The last line of the CRS report signals the finality of what was happening to the tobacco market at the time of that report: “This report will be not be updated.” The history of price supports linked back to American agriculture of the early 1930s. Again from the CRS report: “The first commodity price support legislation was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. Various problems with this and subsequent legislation ultimately led to adoption of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938.” The end of price supports in more recent years did not end tobacco agriculture in Greene County, but put it under a contractual system. The fields and patches of tobacco seen in Greene County and its region these days are being raised under buyer contracts, said Milton Orr, Greene County Extension Service agent, in a recent interview. The number of U.S. farms that grew tobacco or had the right to do so under federal quotas dropped from 93,300 in 1997 to just over 4,000 by 2015, USA Today reported in that year, citing U.S. Agricultural Census data. Orr said that one result of the advent of the contract system for tobacco growing was a weakening of the tobacco market. The old supported system provided a degree of predictability and stability that the current contractual process cannot duplicate. Further, Orr noted, “Big tobacco is very particular about how many contracts they will have out and how big they will be.”
So even though “you can now raise all the tobacco you want to raise,” said Orr, “the tobacco market is still weak because our potential buyers are so narrow.” Typically, a tobacco contract guarantees the buyer that the grower will raise a designated amount of tobacco of a particular quality. If the grower fails to deliver the promised quantity or quality, the price paid for the product is lowered. Some growers even have had to sign contracts that leave them not knowing how much they will be paid, Orr said. Social, medical and scientific shifts also have impacted tobacco. Smoking is banned or limited in many areas, and advocacy against tobacco use pervades. Orr said that, according to what he hears, tobacco companies, feeling societal and business pressures, even are taking a new tack, researching and trying to find ways to make tobacco less addictive at the molecular and chemical level. “It appears that what the companies are doing is trying to avoid doing what the railroad companies did, which was deciding they were in the railroad business instead of the transportation business,” Orr said. Had the railroad companies embraced and incorporated innovations such as trucking, they might have avoided many of the struggles that later threatened to put them out of business, Orr said in explaining his analogy. In relation to tobacco, the point is that tobacco companies must function within the world of 2019, with its mores, attitudes and levels of scientific and medical knowledge, not the world as it was in the
mid-20th century. The American Cancer Society has said that court mandates prompted much of the seemingly corrective tobacco company responses Orr referenced. The ACS reported in November of 2017 that, due to court orders, “full-page newspaper ads will appear in papers in more than 50 major cities through April 2018.” Similar television ads began on Nov. 27, 2017, and ran on major network or cable stations during primetime for 52 weeks, according to the ACS. The mandates prompting those ads and commercials were based on earlier tobacco company admissions that they had deliberately sought to heighten the addictive properties of their products, particularly cigarettes.
OTHER IMPACTING FACTORS The loss of the old support system and the shift of public awareness and opinion regarding tobacco are not all that are changing the Greene County tobacco industry, Orr said. Two other factors Orr notes are 1) younger Americans simply are not attracted to tobacco farming because it is labor-intensive, less profitable than in the past, and carries societal stigmas, and 2) the average age of Greene County farmers already is about 60, and as these farmers age they are less inclined, or able, to tackle the physical tasks involved in raising and curing tobacco. “If you’re 70, you probably can’t climb up in those high rafters of the tobacco barn like you used to do back when you were 45,” Orr said. Absent some younger family member willing to
do that kind of work, the only options for age-hampered tobacco farmers are to hire help with a crop already less profitable than
it once was, or opt out of raising tobacco at all. For many, the latter option is the one chosen.
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Page 6
The Greeneville Sun Benchmarks Edition
GreenevilleSun.com
Friday, March 22, 2019
Farmers Markets Prep For New Vendors BY MANSI BOEGEMANN SUN CONTRIBUTOR As the weather continues to tease Greene County residents, community members are already hard at work preparing for the summer season. The Depot Street, Greeneville and Fox Park Fair farmers markets are anticipating another busy season at each of their respective locations.
DEPOT STREET FARMERS MARKET The Depot Street Farmers Market downtown has been in operation for five years under the direction of co-founder Mary Goldman. “People should be downtown on Saturday mornings,” said Goldman. “It’s a great opportunity for the community to come together, visit with each other and have fun.”
Goldman said that there were 25 registered vendors last season, and that roughly 12 to 15 of them would arrive on any given Saturday. The Depot Street market is regulated, only allowing vendors from within a 50-mile radius. “Whatever you bring, you must make or grow it yourself,” said Goldman. Goldman said that she expects a lot of the same vendors to attend this year, bringing along produce like corn, tomatoes and micro greens. She also anticipates the sale of honey, pork, lamb, eggs, baked goods and possibly beef. “We have a really good variety,” said Goldman. The Depot Street Farmers Market is still accepting new vendors, and they don’t have to be farmers. Goldman said that gardeners are welcome too, even if just for a week or two.
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“If you have a surplus of your product that you don’t want to give away or can, bring it to the market,” said Goldman. The Depot Street Farmers Market will kickoff on May 4 in front of the federal courthouse. Hours are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the season will end on Oct. 26. The annual “Summer Fest” will take place on June 29, which will be an extended market with more to see and do. “Community Day,” scheduled for Sept. 13, will allow for local non-profits to setup and share information about what they do for the community, as well as raise money for children in need. The Greeneville-Greene County Public Library, Capitol Theatre and Rural Resources will also have a presence. We’ll have music there, too,” said Goldman. “It will
be very festive.”
GREENEVILLE FARMERS MARKET The Greeneville Farmers Market is excited to begin its second season at the Doak House Museum in Tusculum. “[Last year] was excellent,” said Market Manager and CEO Judy Shelton. “The Doak House and university staff has been very welcoming.” The arrangement last season was mutually beneficial for both the market and the Doak House. The museum includes the farmers market happenings in its monthly newsletter, accompanied with photos. “Our presence there on Saturday mornings enables them to give tours to people who have never
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Fouryear-old twin sisters Riley, left, and Mattilyn Easterly were helping their father, Kevin Easterly, sell Triple Sweet corn at the Depot Street Farmers Market in 2018.
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been inside the Doak House before,” said Shelton. The location is desirable for both vendors and customers as well. Shelton said that the vendors love it because of the higher traffic volume than the previous location at the Greene County Fairgrounds. The farmhouse-style of the property also makes for a picturesque scene. “The customers love it because of its serene setting and easy access,” said Shelton. The Greeneville Farmers Market requires that each of their vendors sell locally grown and produced items like fruits, vegetables and crafts. Some vendors opt to join the market’s online program, where customers can shop for products yearround. The market also allows direct sales vendors to attend
PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE SUN
The Fox Park Fair Farmers Market will open May 3.
on special event days, and invites non-profit organizations and clubs to schedule fundraisers with them. “We want to support everybody in our community and give those small busi-
ness owners an opportunity to introduce themselves to the community,” said Shelton. “They have families to support also.” Like previous years, the Greeneville Farmers Market
will accept SNAP cards, which means that customers can redeem up to $20 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables. Additionally, “Anyone that still has any Fresh
Savings Tokens from our market may use them this year only at our market,” said Shelton. “After the market closes for the season, we will not be able to accept them.” The annual Mother’s Day celebration will kick off the season as usual on May 11 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Other special events like “Bring Your Neighbor Day” and “Country Christmas” can be found on the market’s website. The Greeneville Farmers Market is also accepting new vendors. To register, visit www.greenevillefarmersmarket.com or call at 552-3023. A new and returning vendor meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Doak House Museum on March 30.
FOX PARK FAIR FARMERS MARKET Located on the corner of Main and McKee Streets, The Fox Park Fair market will open up its ninth sea-
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son from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, May 3. “We have some new things cooking,” a recent Facebook post says. “Stay tuned!” The market is unique in that it serves as a fundraiser for the Greeneville Greene County History Museum and has no operations budget. “We have only a few ‘rules’ and guidelines, as we believe in the autonomy of each vendor to manage their own business and it’s practices,” notes a Facebook post from last season. These rules follow the same concept as the other two markets in town. All products must be made or grown in Greene County, and no resale products will be accepted. Fox Park Fair is looking for new vendors, particularly “eggs, honey, local meat” and soaps. To register, send a private message to the Fox Park Fair Facebook page. All vendor fees are by donation only.
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Friday, March 22, 2019
30th Farm-City Banquet Celebrates Greene County Agriculture BY BIANCA MARAIS SUN CONTRIBUTOR In a family-style setting, the 30th annual Farm-City Banquet presented by the Greene County Partnership Agribusiness Committee featured a wholesome meal friends and families enjoyed together. Old friends greeted one another and neighbors enjoyed light-hearted conversation as the feeling of community and generosity swept through the Clyde Austin 4-H Center. Approximately 200 farmers, agricultural professionals and community members showed up for an evening of fun, scholarship announcements, award presentations and a chicken dinner in November. Steve Hale, retired University of Tennessee Extension director, presented the 2018 Robert C. Austin Award for Distinguished Service to Community to Rhonda Humbert, who was previously general manager of Capitol Theatre of Greeneville, serves as executive director of the Foster Grandparents program and is on the board of directors for the Greene County Fair. Hale joked that if someone were to look at Humbert’s list of responsibilities in the community, they would wonder how she had time to do anything else. “I’m proud to be a Greene Countian,” said a shocked Humbert as she accepted her award. Dennis Adams was awarded the 2018 J.W. Massengill Award for Distinguished Service to Agriculture. The award was given to him by Philip “P.B.” Bachman, Massengill’s grandson. Adams has around 50 years of service dedicated to the dairy industry in several states. Some guests included County Commissioner George Clemmer, County Clerk Lori Bryant, Road
Superintendent Kevin Swatsell and former Greene County Sheriff Pat Hankins, among others. “I am so proud to say that with the Future Farmers of America Foundation here in Greene County, which started in 1993 and then started the scholarship a few years later, we have raised over $34,000 over the years,” said Ronnie Sartain, a member of the Greene County Partnership’s Agribusiness Committee. Sartain congratulated Jenna Williams and Courtney Jessie, of West Greene High School, for receiving the $1,000 scholarship from the the FFA Foundation. He also awarded the $1,000 scholarship by the Greene County Livestock Association to Christina Emmett and Colton Fleenor of Chuck-Doak High School, as well as Courtney Jessie of WGHS. Sartain presented a slideshow made by the Agribusiness Committee for the year. During the slideshow, he explained the importance of agricultural tourism in Greene County and highlighted some local agricultural statistics. Greene County is the top county in beef cattle production in Tennessee. The state has 67,300 farms. The cattle industry in Tennessee generates $860 million for family beef farms, a news release announcing the event said. Tennessee cattle farms supply consumers with 4.6 million quarter-pound hamburgers, 125 million pounds of roast and 62 million pounds of steaks each year. The Agribusiness Committee hosts several events throughout the year. Kid’s Day on the Farm is held in October at the University of Tennessee AgResearch & Education Center for third-graders in the city and county school systems. The event teaches local
SUN FILE PHOTO
Philip “P.B.” Bachman, left, awarded the 2018 J.W. Massengill Award for Distinguished Service to Agriculture to Dennis Adams, center left. Bachman is Massengill’s grandson. Rhonda Humbert, center right, received the 2018 Robert C. Austin Award for Distinguished Service to Community. Mike McElroy, far right, emceed the annual Farm-City Banquet and is also the chairman of the Greene County Partnership’s Agribusiness Committee.
kids about daily aspects of farming. The June Dairy Days Celebration has contests for all ages, entertainment and free dairy products to sample as Greeneville and Greene County pays homage to dairy farmers. The Agribusiness Committee publishes a monthly newsletter of farm and gardening tips and includes important upcoming dates for the rural community. The Greene County Agriculture Today radio program, heard each Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. on WGRV AM and FM radio stations, also provides information on current topics of interest to local farmers and others involved in agriculture. Hosted by Sartain, the radio program is also a service of the Agribusiness Committee.
“Our theme this year is ‘Celebrating the importance of agriculture to all citizens in Greeneville and Greene County,’” said Sartain. “We want to tell the story of agriculture.” Sponsors for banquet were Andrew Johnson Bank, George Mays, C&C Millwright Maintenance Company, Consumer Credit Union, Delfasco, Farm Credit Mid-America, Greene County Veterinary Medical Center, Greeneville Federal Bank, Greeneville Light & Power System, Greene County Farm Bureau, Heritage Community Bank, John Deere Power Products, Tusculum Farm Bureau-Wayne Hughes, The Greeneville Sun, Still Hollow Century Farm, Eastman Credit Union, First Tennessee Bank and The Timeless Fence Systems.
SUN FILE PHOTO
Ronnie Sartain, a member of the Greene County Partnership’s Agribusiness Committee, spoke of the diversity within Greene County agriculture at the 30th Annual Farm-City Banquet, hosted by the committee.
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