Ohio Director of Agriculture David Daniels was one of a panel of Ag experts speaking at Friday’s "Agriculture Is Everyone's Business" breakfast in Hillsboro. Daniels agreed that not enough attention is given to the economic development that comes from farming.
"A guy goes out, and he buys a new combine -- half a million dollars," said Daniels, "and then you add a couple heads on there -- you're up to $750,000. You don't see a lot about that, but that's an investment in a company's future and their business and that might allow them to bring on an employee to be more productive to add more back into the economy."
He also spoke on the effort to preserve prime farm land. Daniels said they have the Office of Farm Land Preservation working where there is newly formed pressure from developers for housing and industry. People, however, are also starting to realize the value of the farmland, he added.
"I said nothing will preserve farm land quicker than high commodity prices, so we want to get prices back up and that'll help preserve those."