Tennessee Farms Provide Diverse Lessons in Dairy, Row Crops, Poultry

Showmanship skills and a Jersey cow have caused Tennessee’s popular Governor, Bill Haslam, to go a bit viral since Tuesday, August 8, 2017 in the Twitterverse!

Here’s how it looked in the Twitter video from the TN Department of Agriculture (If you don’t see the video icon, you may need to click on the box to see the complete video clip):

Gov @BillHaslam practices his #jersey showmanship skills. pic.twitter.com/rJvCM67deC

— TN Dept. of Ag (@TNAgriculture) August 8, 2017

The animal handling skills of the governor were part of his visit to the farm of Jason Gillespie and family, whose 100-cow registered Jersey operation is located near Chapel Hill, TN.

The farm visit is one in a series of visits the Governor is paying to all types of farms and agribusinesses in the various geographic regions of Tennessee.  He has been accompanied on these visits by Tennessee’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Jai Templeton, Tennessee Farm Bureau president Jeff Aiken, and personnel from each of those organizations.

Haslam’s administration has been very  ‘agriculture friendly.’  Farmers across the state and in all sectors of agriculture have benefited from the Tennessee Ag Enhancement Program, a cost-share grant program which has catalyzed thousands of infrastructure improvement on differing types of farming operations.

A couple of extended videos detail more about the visits:

a.)  “It’s important that a governor understand more about Tennessee’s most important industry,”  is the reason Governor Haslam gives for his series of farm visits in one video clip, and

b.) Governor Haslam drives a spray rig at the row-crop farm he visits,  a poultry farmer explains after-effects  following TN’s HPAI incident earlier this spring, and the governor aspects learns about the operations of Gilmac Dairy Farm in the second video.

Maybe – just maybe – we can find Governor Haslam in the ring at World Dairy Expo this October, or at least at either the Tennessee Valley Fair, in his hometown of Knoxville, or at a middle TN Fair.

Other photos from the day and other farm visits can be found at the Twitter pages of the TN Department of Agriculture  or the Tennessee Farm Bureau.

But for now, we want to say “THANK YOU, GOVERNOR HASLAM” for visiting first-hand Tennesssee’s farms and agribusinesses!