Pa. Farm Show 2021 begins Saturday, will be virtual

The Pennsylvania Farm Show is moving to a virtual platform for its 105th year because of covid-19 restrictions.

The weeklong event, which usually takes place in Harrisburg, will begin Saturday, with new content offered daily. Content will be offered through the Farm Show website, as well as social media pages. The full calendar of events is available online.

“For 105 years, there has been a Pennsylvania Farm Show, through good times and bad, through feast and famine, through war and peace — and now, a pandemic,” Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said. “If there was ever a year to celebrate agriculture and food, it’s this year.”

The Farm Show will honor the traditional pillars of the event: education, entertainment and business.

Though moving to an online platform was a major change, Redding said, the upside is that content will be easily accessible 24 hours a day.

“Instead of the public coming to our house at the Farm Show complex, we’re taking the Farm Show into their homes,” he said, adding that he hoped more Pennsylvanians would be able to access the event through the virtual platform this year.

The event will feature over 200 virtual exhibits, daily STEM activities for kids and presentations and seminars discussing food security, the environment and business. Farmers will share their personal stories from their own farms. Live duckling and beehive cameras and Instagram takeovers will round out the week of online content.

“Farm Show will begin each morning by inspiring us with the National Anthem and reassuring us at the end of the day with an agriculturally-themed bedtime story. And in between, we’ll be entertained and get a steady diet of good information,” Redding said.

This year’s theme is “cultivating tomorrow.” The theme is meant “to express the aspiration we all have when we regain our freedoms of daily life and traditions, including Farm Show,” Redding said.

The Farm Show will offer kid-friendly activities to inspire the next generation to take an interest in agriculture.

“We are hopeful that that plants a seed of interest so they better understand the industry that impacts their lives,” Redding said.

After this entirely virtual Farm Show, future shows will likely include a “significant virtual component,” Redding said.