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For those of us that have grown up in an agricultural community, the fair is
an annual tradition of local businesses exhibiting and promoting their
products and services and the center of competitive showing of livestock and
farm products by youth and adults. 4-H and FFA livestock projects are the
core of the youth competition and are central to the essence of the fair
experience.
Decades of tradition and
precedents exist for the event we call “The Fair”. For the youth
exhibitor, these include picking and registering their project animal, care
and feeding of their animal and gaining knowledge of the rules of the
competition and techniques of showmanship. Those in 4-H and FFA are mindful
of their respective pledges and mottos: In 4-H they pledge: “my Head to
clearer thinking, my Heart to greater loyalty, my Hands to larger service,
and my Health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and
my world”; while those in FFA follow their twelve short words by which to
live: “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to
Serve”. Exhibitors focused on their animals, on stall duties, on
camaraderie and on the competition of showing their animals. Whatcom County
veterinarians have volunteered their services to inspect all incoming
livestock projects to evaluate compliance with regulatory standards and to
aid in the prevention of transmission of contagious diseases. The
traditional fair going public had strong links to agriculture, friends and
family.
The change in this country and
in this county to urbanization and industrialization, including agriculture,
has effected changes that are felt throughout our lives including even our
local fair. In the past 15 years we have had our awareness to the link
between animals and public health challenged at many levels. An outbreak in
1993 of E.coli O157:H7, the possibility of BSE in our food supply and the
concern for the potential or foot and mouth disease in our national herds of
cattle, sheep, goats and swine. Public health and biosecurity are now
everyday aspects of the care we give the animals. The individual animal
needs protection from the heartaches like those created by Malignant
Catarrhal Fever this past show season; our national herd and our food supply
needs protection and programs like the National and State Animal
Identification are part of that support system; the public needs to trust
their food supply and the caretakers of that supply.
The fair is one of the close
links between urban and agricultural America. While our youth are involved
in 4-H and FFA projects for all the traditional reasons, they are also
examples of animal agriculture to our urban public. In the past the care of
animals was dictated by husbandry and showmanship, today those reasons
continue, but the public will also have their expectations for the care and
welfare of animals at the fair. Those of us that are directly involved in
animal agriculture must realize it is not the same old fair. We must be
aware and supportive of the changes needed to maintain public confidence in
the care given to animals and the safety of their food supply. We must help
our youth recognize and effectively convey those changes to the fair-going
public.
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