PIKE COUNTY, Ohio – Kim Harless, senior organization director of the Pike County Farm Bureau, promotes her book, “The Life of a Real Farmer,” to teach children where their food comes from and highlight real Pike County farmers’ lives.

The book offers a glimpse of what it’s like to balance life as a farmer with the realities of working off the farm.

“The purpose behind it is to let the community people know that maybe the person driving your school bus is also a farmer,” Harness said.

USDA data from 2023 estimates that 96 percent of farm households earned income from off-the-farm sources. Working off the farm is not always about income.

“Many of our farmers or their spouses have to work off the farm so they can get their health insurance through their job; that is one of the biggest driving factors for our area,” Harless said.

What began as an inspired dream in the early hours of 2023 evolved into a community project, uniting Pike County around agricultural literacy.

Harless remembers waking up early one morning with an idea so exciting that she emailed her secretary at 3:30 a.m. “She’s like, what is wrong with you?” she said.

“I said I just can’t shake this, I just have a good feeling about it, and I know this county can do it.”

Harless brought the idea to the Pike County Farm Bureau Board in 2024, and they liked it.

When considering content for the book, Harless wanted to feature each board member, along with various farms in the county. “We focused on our board members first, and then we started thinking we wanted to focus on a variety of different related commodities,” she said.

The 39-page book features photographs and text that emphasize farming and educational backgrounds, as well as off-farm jobs. “We want to show that the majority of people around our area aren’t big enough to just be full-time farmers, but that’s okay because they can drive a bus or work at the auditor’s office – that still allows them to do what they love.”

The book opens with an introduction about the author and an acknowledgment of every board member who contributed. Each board member received a uniform for their portraits, uploaded their favorite farm photos, and wrote their own family farm histories. Harless collected, edited, and turned those personal stories and photos into the book.

Two pages are dedicated to each board member or farm family, telling their unique stories. “Each family or individual selected what aspects of their story they wanted to highlight, and we worked together to edit and refine each narrative,” Harless said.

The book was a collaborative effort, involving multiple rounds of revisions with the staff at Ohio Farm Bureau’s Heart Magazine. “Their feedback and support were invaluable as we shaped the final version,” Harless said.

Board members and featured farmers were encouraged to take their time selecting photos they were happy with before submitting photographs for the book. Submissions were due by the end of October 2024. “I gave that deadline and said we need to have everything in so I can start on the writing, the editing, and getting everything sent to Ohio Farm Bureau,” Harless said.

A financial boost came when the team secured a $5,000 grant from the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation. “We’re a small county with limited funds, but we were all in on this book,” Harless said. The agricultural literacy grant green-lighted the project. By January, the team was finalizing the edits; in February, printing began, to have the books ready for March’s “Right to Read” week.

This past spring, volunteers visited every elementary school in Pike County, reading the book to approximately 1,100 students and donating copies to both classrooms and libraries throughout the county.

The book’s reach extended even further when it was tied into ag career connections, with volunteers reading to older students and linking the stories to real-life agricultural careers.

In May, every Pike County third grader who attended the Ag Day free field trip received a copy of the book. A total of 389 books were distributed in a single day.

While the book’s content and pictures are best suited for elementary students, older children, and adults have also enjoyed it. The book’s popularity has grown through social media and community events, with all proceeds from book sales going directly to the Pike County Farm Bureau Youth Fund, which provides scholarships and supports youth programming.

Recognition has followed, including an award for community partnership from Nationwide Insurance and special acknowledgment from the American Farm Bureau president. “We sent a copy of the book to our American Farm Bureau president, Zippy Duvall, and when some of my coworkers were visiting DC, they actually took a picture of the book on his desk,” Harless said.

The project sparked interest beyond Pike County, and while there are aspirations to distribute the book statewide, logistical and publishing challenges remain. “We haven’t tried it on Amazon or anything like that – because you have to go through all this stuff – but I’d love to get it out statewide,” Harless said.

Plans are underway for future educational materials, including agriculture-themed activity sheets for local restaurants and a six-page activity booklet for children. “We talked about doing a series, but we don’t want to do it back-to-back, so this year we’re doing an activity sheet,” Harless said. The activity sheets will highlight Pike County’s agricultural facts and statistics about Ohio agriculture.