Rather than see kids disappointed, Josh Hiatt says he’s doing all he can to make sure that San Joaquin County’s premiere junior livestock show, AgFest, is successful despite a state-ordered ban on the display of poultry and dairy cows.
As AgFest’s president, Hiatt says he’s exploring whether his exhibition can get an exemption from the state Department of Food and Agriculture, which issued the indefinite ban in January. And if he can’t, he’s ready to get creative, using some of the lessons learned when he faced the same challenges during the coronavirus pandemic.
Why not just take the easy route and cancel the events outright? It’s not his nature, he said.
“I’m kind of a never-give up, never-surrender kind of guy,” Hiatt said.
AgFest is a local summer tradition. When the San Joaquin County Fair ran into financial trouble more than a decade ago, the agricultural competition was split off. It became a separate organization, AgFest, run by about 20 board members and at competition time, scores of volunteers.
Today, AgFest holds its breeding livestock competition during the fair, scheduled this year May 30-June 1. The main part of the show, however, is AgFest itself, which runs June 8-14. It’s big, filling the barns and stalls at the fairgrounds. There are years where up to 250 sheep and goats and 450 hogs are displayed.
Young people, many of them active in 4-H or FFA — Future Farmers of America — bring in the livestock they have spent so much time and money raising. It might be pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits or cows, to name a few. The animals are entered for judging and auction.
In some years, nature throws the event a curve. Such was the case during the pandemic when in-person exhibitions were put on hiatus.
And that’s what is happening this year as well. The spread of bird flu through dairies and henhouses has cut a swath through the meat and egg industries and raised fears the flu could jump to humans. The county has reported that two people have been infected, and hundreds of thousands of ducks and chickens were culled.
In January, Annette Jones, the state veterinarian, announced a dairy cow and poultry ban until further notice “to minimize the danger of exposing people and non-infected cows and birds to the disease.”
Hiatt said he believes he can make a reasonable case for an exemption from the ban. Although bird flu has hit the county’s farmers hard, Hiatt said it appears the illness is waning, as the number of new cases is decreasing and there have been no new cases in humans reported in California since mid-January.
Plus, at AgFest, exhibitors have to provide test results showing their animal is negative for bird flu. The show will have a veterinarian on site who can order any animal into quarantine.
“We will have multiple, multiple things in place,” Hiatt said.
In addition, the show always has a strong security presence.
No matter what happens, Hiatt said he can make things work.
For instance, in the case of chickens or turkeys, the judging might take place after they are processed into oven-ready birds. Or for dairy cows, the presentation and judging could go entirely to video, as it did during the pandemic.
“We volunteer in this organization to put on this show and do the best job that we can. And I think you are doing an injustice to just throw in the towel,” Hiatt said.