FFA celebrates agriculture with community

PINE PLAINS — The annual FFA Fall Festival was held on Friday, Oct. 7, and Saturday, Oct. 8, to celebrate local agriculture and to give FFA members a chance to demonstrate their showman skills with their livestock.Saturday’s festivities were kicked off with an early morning parade through the middle of town from the Seymour Smith Intermediate Learning Center to the Stissing Mountain Middle/High School, where booths buzzed with activities throughout the day.Tractors putted along the parade route, gearing up for the antique tractor pull.Nearby, local merchants sold their wares, including bread, honey, cheese, yogurt and cookies.Donna Sanders and Sandy Douglass sold homemade baked goods and handmade quilted bags.Sanders said that the FFA Fall Festival is like a community day for the town that gives people a chance to learn about where food comes from, interact with animals and have a good time.Douglass said that it’s important to bring awareness of local farms struggling to survive while competing against larger farms.She also said that it’s important to appreciate items that are handmade, “the way things used to be made, with care, not mass-produced.”“Pine Plains always needs more excuses to get out, and this is a good one,” said Rory Chase, who manned a booth for The Amazing Real Live Food Co. and Chaseholm Farm Creamery, which made cheeses and ice cream. “It’s a fun chance for a town that’s historically so agriculturally based to remember its roots.”Chase, a Stissing Mountain alum, said he enjoys giving his neighbors a chance to try his products, which are made with local milk.The next booth over was offering samples of yogurt made by Hammond Dairy.“It’s like ice cream. It’s good,” said one of the tasters, Nancy Finnegan.The yogurt plant was started by the daughters of David Hammond in an attempt to diversify the products that were made on the farm.The yogurt is required by law to be pasteurized, but it is not homogenized, meaning the milk and the cream are not mixed together. The nonhomoginization gives the yogurt a unique flavor and texture.The other characteristic of the yogurt that separates it from typical mass-produced varieties is that the ingredients are nearly all locally produced; only the chocolate and vanilla flavoring comes from outside New York state. The fruit is locally sourced.The yogurt also uses top-quality milk and the bare minimum of other ingredients to ensure the quality of the product and to make the yogurt as healthy as possible. The plain yogurt contains only milk and probiotics. The vanilla flavor contains milk, probiotics and vanilla.Nearby, children had their faces painted, munched on cotton candy and explored the FFA pavilion, where FFA students were preparing their animals for presentation.The pavilion was brimming with activity. A procession of young helpers continually cleaned the hay on the ground and cleared the walking path in the middle of the building. Parents beamed as they watched their children confidently speak with spectators and teach people about the animals. In the quieter pockets of the pavilion, students lovingly pet their animals and curled up against them for a rest while watching the crowd stream by.At the entrance, Sara Murphy, the president of the Stissing Mountain FFA chapter, combed the tail of one of the cows to make sure the animal looked prim and proper for the show.Murphy, a high school junior, has been in the FFA for six years, but has been showing cows since she was 7 years old.She said that participating in the FFA has strengthened her leadership skills and has made her more comfortable with public speaking.She believes agricultural fairs are important because they give the community a chance to meet the animals and understand more about agriculture.“Not everyone thinks about agriculture,” she said, “but this is where their food comes from.”

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