​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
Farmers today face challenges.  Farmers of any day have.  So too will farmers of the future.  That is one reason a group like the Future Farmers of America (FFA) exists – to help get them ready.
Four Northeast Bradford High School students are now wearing blue and gold as they begin a series of leadership challenges that will shape them for life.  Joshua Keeney, Emma Neuber, Kale Winters, and Kaleb Keeney are obviously willing to grow as they don their first FFA jacket in January 2021.  Their jackets were awarded to them from the Pennsylvania FFA Alumni Association after each wrote an essay about what the FFA jacket means to them and about their plans in FFA and in agriculture.

​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
Do you realize that regular, every-day, neighbors of ours are producing world-class, healthy, 100% all-natural sugar right here in our own back yard?  It’s one of those forgotten wonders.
While maple sugar harvest here pre-dates recorded history, today, Pennsylvania ranks 6th out of 25 US states in production while Bradford County is 5th among 56 Pennsylvania Counties.  Bradford County’s 53 sugar makers install an estimated 54,200 taps each year, producing 8,000 gallons of delectable, 100% all-natural maple syrup.  Many direct-market their product as maple syrup along with the other most common 100% natural-sugar forms of maple cream, maple candy, and dry maple sugar.  Maple flavored goodies beyond these are only limited by the imagination.

By: Jonathan VanNoy, Natural Resource Specialist
     If I were to tell you to close your eyes and describe what comes to mind when you hear the word “wetland”, what would you describe?  A stagnant, slimy waterbody?  A grassy, soupy area with cattails?  Maybe that lower field that you can only make hay on every few years?  How about that special place that you love to hunt ducks, or trap muskrats?  You may have an archery stand on the edge of a swamp that comes to mind.  You might describe that spot in your woods that pools water each spring, and for one or two warm nights a year is just crawling with toads or salamanders as they congregate to lay masses of eggs.  (Go to a local vernal pool, pond, swamp or wetland on a warm, spring evening and pull up a chair and just listen and watch.  There is NOTHING that can compare to the sound you will hear if the frogs or toads have congregated!)

By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
     Sustainable food production and distribution is getting people’s attention today.  Thankfully, we have had leaders among us who haven’t taken this for granted.  Let’s remember some.

By: Guest Columnist Cheyenne Bastian-Brown, Bradford County FFA President
What do you think of when you hear FFA?  When confronted with the concept of what FFA (formally known as the National Future Farmers of America Organization) is, many people focus primarily on the word farmer and look no further for any other explanation. Since the title includes the phrase “Future Farmer,” it is then believed that each member of the organization is in pursuance of one day becoming a farmer, a landowner, and someone to feed the world population… nothing else. Typically, this is the idea that most parent/guardians have in mind when their student pursues an interest in agricultural education.

By: Tori Welliver, Dirt Gravel & Low Volume Roads Specialist
​
     While the best time to plant a tree is during our first seedling sale 50 years ago, the second-best time is today!
​
     Planting trees is an investment in the future and locals have been making that investment through the conservation district’s annual sale for 50 years.  Each winter when the “green papers” start showing up at local store fronts, we know that spring is drawing near.

By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist
     Every year the Conservation District organizes education days at all the local schools.  We bring in the Game Commission, beekeepers, maple producers, farmers, and the like.  We also do a station or two ourselves.  Luckily, I often get to run one of the stations.  It is the most fun I have all year.  I love educating young people.  I tweak my topic each time I do it, but the most basic stuff is always there.  I try to bring it “home” for them.  I would like to ask all of you the same thing I ask them, and really try to bring it “home” to you.  What are the four things that we absolutely, positively must have to survive day in and day out?  The younger kids usually get close to the right answers.  I am sure there are some older folks that think cell phone, internet, cable TV and a car.  You know the good stuff.  My, how some of us have become “removed” from the important things that we absolutely MUST have.   Have you guessed any of the four things yet?​

By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader
​
   The Bradford County Conservation District celebrated difference makers at its annual appreciation dinner Friday night at the Troy Sale Barn. Volunteers were appreciated, land managers recognized, projects highlighted, supporters thanked and advances simply celebrated. 
    We all could stand to improve our habit of celebrating both big and little successes. 
   Conservation Districts set up within county jurisdictions across the country are boards of local residents who help promote sound use of natural resources in the community. Bradford County has excelled since its humble 1956 inception. Partnerships with land managers and community members are what make the wheels turn.