The Ohio State University Agricultural Extension Service sponsors an annual event called the Farm Science Review which is located in London, Ohio. I learned of this by happenstance while helping my students, Kesley Lynch and Jaeryn Flanik plan part of their project of photographing towns in Ohio that are named for cities in Europe. I expected this event to be a modest sized trade show with some educational seminars and lots of food vendors—much like a county fair, but without the carnival rides and games.

However, this is a HUGE event with a trade show that included every kind of farm equipment and technology currently on the market, and a few things that are, shall we say, “out there.” Imagine a control system that will drive a tractor over a field automatically to plant or harvest crops using a GPS guidance program with no operator intervention.

Seminars and demonstrations included everything from bee keeping to full scale demonstrations of plowing and harvesting equipment. The event site covered over two thousand acres which provided ample space for field demonstrations, the equipment show, and parking for what looked like about 10,000 pickup trucks (and a few cars as well). The main exhibition area was laid out in a grid of nine “streets,” each about a quarter mile long. A pair of good walking shoes is highly recommended.