Tuesday afternoon Purdue Extension and Dubois Strong hosted the 2016 Southwest Indiana Agriculture Economic Summit at the beautiful Huntingburg Event Center. Featured guest included speakers from Purdue’s Extension office, Farbest Foods, USDA Farm Service, and the Indiana Farm Bureau.
The summit is a yearly meeting that focuses on keeping local producers, agricultural business and financial institutions in the know of the newest economic programs and opportunities for the farming community.
Featured speakers covered topics of energy efficiency in rural America, the local food movements, the turkey expansion in SW Indiana and managing crop inputs while maintaining yields.
Speaking on behalf of the USDA was State Executive Director, Julia Wickard. Wickard communicated to the crowd knowledge regarding federal programs for small and beginning farmers and what advice the USDA has to offer in the way of ever changing polices.
Wickard also extended her thanks and complemented the stellar example of how the community handled the avian influenza outbreak earlier this year…
The avian influenza that Wickard was referring to, led to the culling of about 500,000 birds in southern Indiana commercial poultry farms. Officials had to set up and organize procedures and ensure proper safety precautions for the large number of livestock.
Dubois County is Indiana’s largest turkey-producing county, growing 1.4 million birds annually. Indiana ranks fourth in the nation in turkey production.
