By Tracy Turner
Whether it’s questions about how this summer’s record flooding will impact grain prices or whether drones can be used legally to scout agriculture fields, the answers to these and more will be available from experts with the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) at The Ohio State University during Farm Science Review, Sept. 22-24 at the Molly Caren Agricultural Center near London, Ohio.
In fact, 53 presentations will be offered by experts from Ohio State University Extension, the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Purdue University during the Review’s “Question the Authorities” question-and-answer sessions offered daily at the three-day agricultural trade show, said Stan Ernst, an OSU Extension specialist who will moderate the sessions.
OSU Extension and OARDC are the outreach and research arms, respectively, of CFAES.
“Question the Authorities” offers participants the opportunity to ask a range of general or technical questions related to their farm enterprise and offers an easy way for producers to interact with Ohio State and Purdue experts, Ernst said.
“The presentations focus on business, economic and policy concerns as well as current topics that impact agriculture,” he said. “The sessions are a way to get farmers, growers, producers and others a chance to hear directly from university experts on topics that have a financial impact.”
The presentations are broken up into 20-minute sessions, which allows the speakers enough time to get their message across and answer questions from the audience and then move to the next topic, Ernst said.
“A goal of the program is to try to plant ideas and get people to be thinking about the issues that are coming down the pike and how they can impact their operations,” he said. “We want to connect farmers and producers with university experts so that they can not only pick up some management tips that can help them on their farm but to also plant ideas that will have them dig some more as they make their management decisions.”
Some of the other “Question the Authorities” topics will include:
· Managing Your Farm in an Economic Downturn.
· Grain Outlook.
· Current Veterinary Concerns.
· Food Prices.
· Farm Economy and Policy.
· Drones in Agriculture: Know the Law.
· Farmland Prices and Rental Rates.
· Profitable Pricing for Farm Products.
· Poultry Health. Public Concern?
· Growing Beer (Hops and Barley) in Ohio.
· Estate Planning.
· Managing Farm Labor.
· Is the Farm Balance Sheet in Trouble?
· Farming the Bottom Line With Drones.
· Crop Budgets.
· Business Succession Planning.
· Controlling Spread of Disease Outbreaks.
Sponsored by CFAES, the Farm Science Review is known nationally as Ohio’s premier agricultural event. It annually draws more than 130,000 farmers, growers, producers and agricultural enthusiasts. An estimated 620 exhibitors with some 4,000 product lines will set up shop at the farm show, an increase from 608 exhibitors last year, organizers said.
Source:osu.edu