Hoosier Homestead and National Ag Day Celebrations at Statehouse

Hoosier Homestead and National Ag Day Celebrations at Statehouse

The past few days at the Indiana Statehouse has been a celebration of agriculture. On Friday, Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch and Indiana State Department of Agriculture Director Bruce Kettler celebrated farm families by presenting Hoosier Homestead Awards. Kettler says it’s one of his favorite days of the year.

“We celebrated 55 families that have had farms in their family for at least 100 years. With that award, we celebrate the 100, 150, and we actually even had two bicentennial awards celebrating 200 years.”

Those celebrating 200 years were the Sharp, Stephenson, and Mohr families in Crawford County and Fred Wilson, Jr. from Vigo County. The list of recipients can be found below.

On Monday, Indiana’s Family of Farmers, which is made up of many ag commodity groups and ag organizations in the state, celebrated National Ag Day in Indiana at the Statehouse. There was an essay contest held for 4^th-6^th graders that focused on this year’s Ag Day theme, “Agriculture: Food for Life”. Josie Butler from Tipton Elementary School was this year’s winner.

“My teacher told me that I could win 10 extra credit points by doing this essay, and I decided to do it, and now I’m here!”

She got more than just those extra credit points. She was awarded $200 for her essay. Butler does not live on a farm or have an ag background. Kettler says he’s happy that Butler’s teacher offered the extra credit and that Indiana’s Family of Farmers are looking to engage students not necessarily familiar with agriculture.

“They wanted to make sure that we could get students aware of agriculture and I think it’s a pretty safe to say, especially with her and with really with both essay winners that we recognized today, we’re making an impact and getting young people to think about what our industry is all about.”

Butler’s essay revolved around her noticing the words “locally grown” on items at the grocery store. She also has a deep interest in weather, so she researched the impacts the weather can have on farmers.

“Farmers depend on the weather because if it’s too hot their cops can die and if there’s too much rain their crops can get too much water and also die.”

She’s still young and didn’t want to sign a contract today, but she didn’t rule out replacing Ryan Martin at some point as Hoosier Ag Today’s Chief Meteorologist.