Marketing Extension and educating the public about the importance of agriculture are topics that concern members of the Shelby County Extension Council.  A committee of council members and a Shelby County Extension Intern planned a field day to address those concerns.  The 2017 Shelby County Cooperative Extension Field Day was an enormous success. Nearly 305 people attended despite the less than desirable hot weather. It was held at Mulberry Orchard, a local agribusiness and agritourism destination. Council members, Matt and Amanda Gajdzik, were great hosts and provided our meal with majority of the food locally produced. Four tents were provided outside with booths and tables set up for FCS, 4-H, Horticulture, Ag/Natural Resources and community partners to promote programs.

Several 4-H members were on hand to demonstrate and discuss their 4-H projects and promote their clubs to families that attended the field day.  Multiple families indicated that they would like to enroll their kids in 4-H as a result of the new information they acquired by visiting with 4-Hers and Extension Staff.  

An integral part of the field day was the farm tour and hay ride provided by Mulberry Orchard. The intern and Agriculture Agent worked closely with them to help orchestrate this tour to maximize the educational component. It provided visitors with a tour of the farm and a look at some of the diverse crops and commodity’s growing in Shelby County. There were stops on fruit tree production (specifically apples and peaches), Agritourism and how it plays a role in their operation, and an industrial hemp demonstration plot. For the hemp plot, the Kentucky Hempsters, a hemp advocacy group set up a booth to answer questions and provide information about Industrial Hemp and its production and outlook in Kentucky.

The intern surveyed the attendants with three Pre-tour and three Post-tour written questions to gauge their understanding of Shelby County Agriculture’s impact before as well as any difference in their understanding after the tour.  Of the estimated 90 people on the tours, 53 responded on the surveys. Surprisingly, 62.5% of the tour respondents had never attended an Extension event or field day before.  Sixty-eight percent of respondents said that they thought Shelby County farms produced a very diverse number of crops and commodities on the prior to the tour. Eighty-five percent of tour participants said that the tour was very beneficial to their further understanding and knowledge of diverse, non-traditional crops and commodities such as honey, apples, and industrial hemp. From the post-assessment, 88.6% of respondents said the tour was very beneficial to their understanding of the economic impact that agriculture has on Shelby County. Overall this was a very effective event for helping advocate and communicate Shelby County agriculture to a larger audience and introduce Extension to new clientele.