Why State Funding Matters: Penn State Plays Critical Role for Pa. Agriculture

Jun 13, 2022

For Penn State alumnus Jim Shirk, a farm owner from Lancaster County, access to the research, information and programming offered by the College of Agricultural Sciences and Penn State Extension have allowed his family farm to thrive for nine generations.

“My wife and I are the ninth generation to own our family farm in Lancaster County,” said Shirk, a 1993 graduate of the College of Agricultural Sciences. “It came into our family in 1758, so our family has been farming longer than the country has been around. One of the things that has helped our family [farm] not just survive but really continue to grow for nine generations has been access to tremendous information from the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Extension Service.”

Shirk, who also is a territory manager for Ceva Poultry, said the unbiased research conducted at Penn State helps the state's agriculture industry to address a variety of challenges, ranging from diseases like avian influenza to invasive pests like the spotted lanternfly.

“It hits home with us personally because this is the industry that provides for my livelihood, and without Extension we could really be much more vulnerable,” Shirk said.

Source : psu.edu

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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