Fall Time Calls For Fall Festivals

by | Aug 31, 2016 | 5 Ag Stories, News

by Whitney Flach

This weekend, I will be attending my local Fall Festival in Moravia, Iowa. It is a three day event that runs Thursday night through Saturday night. Just some of the events include a FFA Tractor Pull, Horseshoe tournaments, parade, farmer’s challenge contests, BBQ’s, and much more.

October 8, in the Amana Colonies are having the Iowa Hand Corn Husking Contest. The event coordinator is Dave VandenBoom and he hopes guests get a small taste of Iowa history, and a new respect for the state?s founders. Harvest festivals throughout the state in the coming months will celebrate farmers? work with reminders of how tough life on the prairie can be.

?This whole event is set up to keep history alive,? VandenBoom said. ?Once we quit doing things like this, then history disappears. The harvest of corn didn?t start with $400,000 combines.? Because of this, the horse and mule teams pulling loads of corn are the backbone of the event, he said.

Guests can watch or participate in 12 classes of competition, picking, husking and tossing ears of corn into a horse-drawn wagon. The classes include men and women, from a kids group to those 75 and older. VandenBoom said, they?re always looking for more 4-H and FFA teams to compete, and for young people who could eventually take over the event.

Other fall festivals celebrate the next age in agriculture and the machinery that began to replace them. The Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, brings together thousands of farm machinery enthusiasts each Labor Day weekend. John Dunnegan, promotions and marketing manager, said the event started in 1950 as a steam show and get-together. The first attendance was around 10,000, now they bring in 30,000 to 50,000 people. They showcase steam engines, tractors and antique cars and trucks, but the event also includes horse pulls, quilting demonstrations and history exhibits.

Dunnegan said, ?We?re here to preserve our rural ag heritage through education and entertainment. Where else are you going to see someone threshing wheat or getting sorghum made??

The Corn Harvest event at Living History Farms in Urbandale also aims to give its more urban audience a feel for these farm traditions. Jennie Deerr, vice president of marketing for Living History Farms said, ?Many people now are so far removed from where food comes from.? Some children have never seen a pig, let alone different varieties. It?s important today for kids to recognize we still have farmers. They might do things differently, but it?s just as important.

The Corn Harvest emphasizes the importance of corn to farmers in the 19th century through hand picking, shelling and grinding demonstrations using Percheron draft horses, harvest machinery exhibits and the highlight, a farmhands? dinner. Visitors can help with meal preparation.

?It?s a time where we kind of celebrate the end of the season, bringing in the crops just as they would have in 1900,? Deerr said. ?It?s a great way to bring people together before cold weather hits and celebrate a capstone to all that hard work.?

Consider making trip to a local Fall Festival this year, to celebrate the history of harvest and the importance of farmers.