Show Will Move Off-Farm in 2021
Farm Technology Days is set to return to Clark County in 2022.
The next steps will be to form an Executive Committee and recruit farms to host the event, said Bob Meyer, a member of the committee for the 2018 Wood County show who also helped organize Farm Tech Days in 2005, the last time it was held in Clark County.
The Executive Committee usually consists of about 15-18 people who represent the county. Officers are then elected and the 3-year planning process begins. Those who can’t make the full commitment can always help out later in the process.
Meyer hopes the younger generation, those around the ages of 30-50, gets involved to bring in new ideas and cultivate new leaders. “One of the key elements of Farm Technology Days is to train leadership to get involved in this, then turn around and get involved in other community activities as well,” he said.
Anyone interested in being part of the committee can contact Clark County Economic Development or Meyer at Citizens State Bank of Loyal, Marshfield branch.
Once the Executive Committee is formed, it will select a host farm out of the ones that respond to the bid. “For Wood County we had six farms say they would like to host,” said Meyer. “One day, we booked a bus and the Executive Committee went out and visited all the farms.”
Farms are welcome to contact them or previous hosts for more insight on what’s involved with hosting. Potential hosts can also find information on the Farm Technology Days website.
Farm Technology Days 2022 will be held the second or third week in July. It will mark the third time – the first being 1983 – that Clark County has hosted the show.
“Shortly after the 2005 show, there came a conversation about Farm Technology Days going to a permanent site instead of moving around to different counties,” said Meyer. “At that point I was involved through Clark County Economic Development that put together a bid to have the permanent site on Highway 29, just on the east side of Owen where Clark County hospital is located.”
Other counties stepped forward to host the show, so it continued to move around each year. Next year Jefferson County will host with Eau Claire County the following year. However, no county stepped forward to host in 2021.
“We started talking about, should we put the bid back together and pitch Clark County as a host for the site,” Meyer said. “That evolved into, let’s just host the 2022 show and go from there.”
The 2021 show will be scaled back in size, and hosted not at a farm, but at the Jefferson County Fair Park. Jefferson County will hold the 2019 show on July 23-25 at Walter Grain Farm in Johnson Creek.
Follow the show at WiFarmTechnologyDays.com. View past video coverage from this year’s event at this link.
