The sun was shining bright on the new building for the Department of Agriculture at the Ag Progress Days site.
\nAfter being named Secretary of Agriculture, Sam Hayes Jr., a Warriors Mark native set up shop at Ag Progress Days on a card table. Now the Agriculture Department has a new building.
\n\u201cAg Progress Days is a very specific show,\u201d said Hayes. \u201cIt tells the story of where we are in agriculture, but even more important it shows where we are going to be and where we are going to be and where we have to position ourselves to be profitable. The show is non-competitive; it shows where we have to be in the 21st Century.\u201d
\nIn the budget for the Department of Agriculture, $3.5 million is allotted for research and two million of that is allocated to Penn State for agriculture research. Ag Progress Days showcases that research.
\nInside the Department of Agriculture building, there are many excitiing things. A robot captured the attention of many who walked by. The building is also filled with new logos and projects developed by Hayes.
\nThe first display features Pennsylvania\u2019s Farmland Preservation Program. The Commonwealth leads the nation in preservation. As you walk further through the building, there is a food safety exhibit for school cafeterias.
\nThe oversight of the school cafeterias moved under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture under Hayes tenure as Secretary.
\n\u201cI never understood having the people who monitor school cafeterias monitoring for food safety,\u201d said Hayes. \u201cI moved it to the Department of Agriculture. We now have the new campaign, \u2018Good Nutrition Promotes Good Learning.\u2019
\nAnother prominent display included the \u2018Got Milk\u2019 promotion. Pennsylvania\u2019s agriculture production is 48 percent dairy.
\nOne exhibit Hayes pointed out was the landscaping exhibit, which is the fastest growing field in agriculture, Hayes noted.
\nThe Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement now falls under the Ag Department.
\n\u201cThis bureau is responsible for all licensing and vaccinations of dogs,\u201d said Hayes. \u201cThe incidents of rabies in dogs was the highest in the 1940\u2019s and now it is down to zero. Raccoons are the number one carrier of the disease, although it\u2019s carried by skunks and foxes too. We just completed a rabies baiting program for Western Pennsylvania, from Erie down to West Virginia.\u201d
\nThe Daily Herald asked Hayes what is being done to protect residents from the West Nile Virus.
\n\u201cWe have Sentinel Chickens that are checked by blood tests for the virus,\u201d the Secretary said. \u201cFrom an equine standpoint, Pennsylvania is concerned there are more than 250,000 horses in the state. Horses that contract the disease suffer thirty to forty percent mortality loss. No species of animal is more ravaged by West Nile Virus than horses.
\n\u201cRecently a mosquito infected with the disease was found at the Penn National Race Track,\u201d Hayes noted. \u201cThe vaccine hasn\u2019t proved to be as effective as we hoped. There are many different strains. Older people are the most susceptible because of their immune systems are weakened and infants are susceptible because their immune systems are not fully developed.\u201d
\nAnything new in agriculture, in production agriculture is promoted in the new building point the way to a bright future for agriculture in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sun was shining bright on the new building for the Department of Agriculture at the Ag Progress Days site. After being named Secretary of Agriculture, Sam Hayes Jr., a Warriors Mark native set up shop at Ag Progress Days on a card table. Now the Agriculture Department has a new building. \u201cAg Progress Days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}