‘Rescue’ bill for county fairs wins committee support
The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill on Tuesday to create a $500 million a year grant program to support local, county and state fairs that lost attendance and revenue due to the pandemic. An estimated 98 percent of the fairs were canceled last year and more are at risk in the fourth wave of Covid-19.
Setting for a novel flu virus: the fair barn
Livestock shows are a standard part of county fairs nationwide and plenty of fair-goers walk through the barns to see hogs, cattle, sheep, chickens and other farm animal firsthand. And now, the Centers for Disease Control says 18 people, all but two of them children, tested positive for new strains of influenza after attending agricultural fairs in Ohio and Michigan during August, reports Harvest Public Media.
Big salaries but Los Angeles County Fair Assn loses money
The Los Angeles County Fair Assn formed in 1940 "to promote the region's then-booming agriculture industry," says the Los Angeles Times. "But over the years, it morphed into something resembling a conglomerate with little connection to farming or livestock. And its managers have become richly compensated even as the association loses money."