Santa Clara County fairgrounds officials have changed the date of the annual fair to keep their carnival contracts. Local families of young farmers are in uproar.
The county fair will no longer happen in the traditional month of July. Instead, it will be held Aug. 19-23 to accommodate post-pandemic shifts to fair vendors’ schedules, and will likely be the date for future years. The change was announced last December, months after youth farmers — some of whom will start college out of town by the new date — have already purchased cattle and bred sows. Now they’ll be forced to balance their participation in the junior livestock shows with their first week of school. Parents said the date change will affect some youth finalizing their farmer degrees. It also means three extra weeks of financial burden to feed and care for livestock.
But that’s not what vexed families the most.
In a December call to address community concerns, junior livestock parents said county fair officials suggested withholding food in response to concerns that animals would become overweight on the new time window. They said officials also suggested youth farmers sell their livestock if they could no longer make the shows.
“It goes against everything that the Future Farmers of America and raising livestock stands for,” Megan Davies, parent of three Gilroy High School students in the FFA program, told San José Spotlight.
Salene Duarte, manager of the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, denied telling farmers to withhold food. She said farmers give livestock excess food to produce fat and therefore flavor for consumers. She said she advised farmers to withhold excess food before the fair auctions.
“I think we need to look at these animals as athletes. We are raising these animals to be a safe, wholesome and nutritious product for their consumer,” Duarte told San José Spotlight. “At no time did we say they should not be feeding or giving their animals food and water. That’s definitely not what our FFA members should be doing.”
Parents insist they didn’t mishear anything.
“Any veterinarian would tell you that’s not ideal,” Monica Simon, a former FFA member whose child is now in the program in Morgan Hill, told San José Spotlight. “And it’s not ideal for us to have to encourage our youth to do that.”
Davies said her eldest child purchased a steer in September with plans to showcase and sell his animal in July. That now appears to be out of the question, because he’ll start college upstate during the week of the new date. Davies said the decision will affect her son’s ability to obtain the American Degree, which is the highest degree achievable in the Future Farmers of America program.
She and other parents had asked fairgrounds officials to at least maintain the traditional July date for the livestock portion of the fair.
Duarte, whose daughter will participate as a junior livestock exhibitor, said that won’t be possible. Instead, she said the livestock shows will start at 4 p.m. after school ends, with the younger exhibitors starting first and high school exhibitors starting later.
Simon said that adjustment isn’t helpful.
“The animals will still be at the fairgrounds. Somebody still has to be there to take care of them,” Simon said. “So either the kids would have to get up even earlier to take care of their animals and then go to school, or (fairgrounds officials’) solution is putting that responsibility on parents or advisors.”
Simon said her Morgan Hill FFA student chapter alone is looking at thousands of dollars to extend care for their livestock over the three extra weeks.
“I just think the lack of communication that this was even a possibility is really unfortunate and costing people money,” Simon said.
Duarte said she was first notified in November of vendor scheduling problems. She said she had only received confirmation of the new fair dates about an hour before the December call with community stakeholders.
“We notified people as soon as we had a date,” Duarte said. “I gave them the most accurate information on the day that we actually had confirmation and were able to get into contract.”
James Cooper, who has a child in a Gilroy FFA student program, said the livestock showcase is what gives the county fair its local flavor. Without it, he said the fair is just a carnival.
“Moving the fair to when kids are at school and parents are back to work will impact attendance,” he told San José Spotlight. “People don’t realize how hard people are working — especially in California — to provide food for our nation. These FFA students are our future. It’s just sad to see something like this happen.”
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X.
This story originally appeared in San José Spotlight.