Submitted article

Plan now to attend the Crawford Soil and Water Conservation District’s 68th annual meeting on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at the Crawford County Fairgrounds Youth Building in Bucyrus. The evening will begin at 5:30 p.m. with the supervisor election

The charbroiled pork chop dinner catered by Port-a-Cook, back by popular request, will begin at 6:30 p.m. The SWCD conservation slide show and affiliate members recognition will be run during the last half of the dinner hour. The after dinner program will feature supervisor Nathan Brause’s Farmer to Farmer Mission trip to Liberia Africa; the outstanding cooperator award sponsored by Ag Credit, the Lake Erie buffer achievement award, and past supervisor recognition.

Nathan Brause will present a slide show of the Farmer to Farmer mission trip to Liberia, Africa in which he participated this past winter. The Farmer to Farmer Mission group consisted of 14 individuals from the East Ohio Methodist Conference & a couple of Cleveland Baptist Churches.

Their mission was to educate the farmers in Liberia on how to implement production agriculture. Almost all farming in the country is currently done by hand and farmers barely grow enough food to meet their family needs currently. The Farmer to Farmer mission sent a tractor last year, but it broke down and the local farmer could not get the parts he needed to repair it.

Their goal is to get the farmers to use equipment; and plant corn and soybeans along with their native crop, cassava. Cassava is a tuber plant; the leaves can be eaten for protein and the root is high in starch. The group also met with the vice president of the country, whose goal is to export agricultural products.

Nathan also has pictures of various areas of Liberia that the group toured. He will have a display table of memorabilia that he brought back from Africa on display before the meeting and for a short period after the meeting.

Dinner tickets are now on sale for $5 at the Crawford SWCD office; or you can get your tickets from one of the following ticket sellers in your neighborhood: Ben Ackerman, Nathan Brause, Don Fishpaw, Mike Hall, Allen Hartschuh, Marvin James, Don Lohr, Sandy Lyons, Liz Miller, Tom Miller, Floyd Reinhart, Matt Rudd, Diane Sand, Wayne Scheffler, Joyce Schimpf, Ron Schroeder, Mike Shell, Mark Shumaker, Kent Stuckey, Mike Stump, Brad Van Voorhis, and Lorraine Walter.

You can also reserve your tickets for pick up at the door by mailing your payment to the SWCD office with a note stating for whom the tickets should be reserved. All tickets must be reserved by noon on September 3, 2013.

Contact the Crawford Soil and Water Conservation District office at 3111 State Route 98, Bucyrus, Ohio at 419-562-8280 for more information.