CEO’s Message – September 2024

From the Fields To Power Lines: Celebrating the Legacy & Contributions of Local Farmers

Our family didn’t farm when I was a kid, but I grew up in a rural area surrounded by fertile Union County farmland. I spent summer days baling hay and straw for some of our farming neighbors. Often this time of year, I’ll get a whiff of that fresh-cut hay smell, and it teleports me back to the dusty hay lofts of my youth. Boy, that was hard work. I gained a real appreciation for the difficult work my friends did on their family farms.

If you’ve ever attended the Ohio State, Union County, or Richwood Independent fairs, you may have seen firsthand the product of the hard work our local kids put into their 4-H projects. But that’s just a taste of agriculture here in Union County. Grain farming, livestock, and fruits and vegetables raised right here in Union County and the surrounding area are a big part of Ohio’s economy.

Whether you live out in the rural area next to bean and corn fields, or in a suburb within city limits, your well-being depends on farmers. Most of us don’t concern ourselves with crop sciences like agronomy, genetics, or animal science, but farmers live it every day, along with more physical tasks like welding, mechanical repair, and excavation. Because they do, we can simply pop over to the supermarket to buy all the groceries we need for tonight’s dinner.

Did you know that Union Rural Electric Cooperative (URE) owes much of its existence to the local farming community? Those Union County farmers, together with the Farm Bureau and the newly established Rural Electrification Administration, worked to form URE back in 1935 when it was obvious electricity wouldn’t be run into the rural areas of the county without farmers literally doing it themselves. The next year, in 1936, URE was incorporated and began building the first new power lines in the rural areas of Union County. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with the can-do mentality of a group of farmers. Thank goodness for them!

September 17 to 23 is National Farm Safety and Health Week, typically about the time when farmers begin the fall harvest of corn and beans. So, you’re sure to see them in fields and on the road.

Harvest season often requires long hours to finish fieldwork between rainstorms. The last thing our farmers need during this busy and stressful time is our lack of patience on the roadways. Please be careful and respectful on the road around our farming neighbors. We want them to stay safe out there as they do their work. We also encourage farmers to be extra cautious around overhead power lines to avoid accidents and injuries while operating large equipment that might have extended reach.

I always remind our members that URE is your electric cooperative, but that’s only because a group of farmers and their neighbors in 1935 decided they would do it themselves and invited all of us along for the ride. You may not be able to thank a farmer directly, but at least offer a friendly wave next time you carefully pass by 1 driving a tractor down a country road – and maybe give them a little extra room.