Waterbuffalo
07-31-2008, 10:52 PM
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/07/this_year_gas_prices_weigh_on.html
Allan Brettman, Oregonian
RIDGEFIELD, Wash. -- High gas prices translate into two things this year at the Clark County Fair as it opens Friday. One of them is good, one's bad.
Tom Musser, county fair general manager, sees the good. "With so many people choosing to 'staycation,'" Musser said, making air quotes for emphasis about people staying home for vacation, "I think we'll be fairly good."
Musser doesn't have much to base that feeling on, other than media reports telling him this is what people are doing nationwide. He also can look to the fair's five-year string of increasing attendance, retaining its status as one of the region's largest and most successful.
But Leonard Rietdyk, the fair's livestock superintendent, sees the bad -- rising fuel prices, which also affect feed and hay. As a result, some livestock exhibitors are winnowing the number of shows they choose to display their animals.
It's little consolation to Rietdyk, a hobby cattle farmer himself, that the Clark County Fair has stayed on most exhibitors' lists.
"We're down a few exhibitors," Rietdyk said. But overall, the 1,000 to 1,200 head of all types of animals -- beef, dairy, goats, lambs and chickens -- are about the same as in recent years.
The fair, with roots to 1868, gets under way at 8 a.m., when free breakfast and admission is offered up to 11 a.m. with a coupon from Fred Meyer.
In addition to fuel, the price of hay -- jumping in just a year from about $150 a ton to $300 -- has taken the biggest chunk out of farmers' wallets.
"Fertilizer is a petroleum product; twine is petroleum," Rietdyk said. "A lot of farmers took alfalfa out of production to grow corn for ethanol. It all adds up."
A reliable feature at the fair -- shiny new vehicles, parked by a sponsoring auto brand -- hints at the issue. The miles per gallon sticker on one vehicle computed the annual price for gasoline -- based on $2.80 a gallon.
Allan Brettman, Oregonian
RIDGEFIELD, Wash. -- High gas prices translate into two things this year at the Clark County Fair as it opens Friday. One of them is good, one's bad.
Tom Musser, county fair general manager, sees the good. "With so many people choosing to 'staycation,'" Musser said, making air quotes for emphasis about people staying home for vacation, "I think we'll be fairly good."
Musser doesn't have much to base that feeling on, other than media reports telling him this is what people are doing nationwide. He also can look to the fair's five-year string of increasing attendance, retaining its status as one of the region's largest and most successful.
But Leonard Rietdyk, the fair's livestock superintendent, sees the bad -- rising fuel prices, which also affect feed and hay. As a result, some livestock exhibitors are winnowing the number of shows they choose to display their animals.
It's little consolation to Rietdyk, a hobby cattle farmer himself, that the Clark County Fair has stayed on most exhibitors' lists.
"We're down a few exhibitors," Rietdyk said. But overall, the 1,000 to 1,200 head of all types of animals -- beef, dairy, goats, lambs and chickens -- are about the same as in recent years.
The fair, with roots to 1868, gets under way at 8 a.m., when free breakfast and admission is offered up to 11 a.m. with a coupon from Fred Meyer.
In addition to fuel, the price of hay -- jumping in just a year from about $150 a ton to $300 -- has taken the biggest chunk out of farmers' wallets.
"Fertilizer is a petroleum product; twine is petroleum," Rietdyk said. "A lot of farmers took alfalfa out of production to grow corn for ethanol. It all adds up."
A reliable feature at the fair -- shiny new vehicles, parked by a sponsoring auto brand -- hints at the issue. The miles per gallon sticker on one vehicle computed the annual price for gasoline -- based on $2.80 a gallon.