Farm bureau producing farmer trading cards to promote agriculture education, careers
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — “Famous, like Babe Ruth,” quipped Buffalo Township dairy farmer Gerri Goldscheitter on Wednesday about appearing on one of the Butler County Farm Bureau’s latest efforts to promote agricultural education.
Goldscheitter and her three daughters — Hope, Hanna and Faith — are pictured on one of the nine farmer trading cards in the “From Fair to Farm Show 2025” series produced by the bureau’s Women’s Leadership Committee.
The cards are part of the bureau’s “Planting for the Future” initiative aimed at teaching people where their food comes from and spurring interest in careers in agriculture, said Mary Snow, who raises pigs and sheep on her 3-acre Girl on the Hill Inc. farm in Mars. She also owns a farm in Ohio.
“The ‘Planting for the Future’ concept provides hands-on learning to the local community about agriculture education,” Snow said.
Celebrating farmers who showed their animals and products at the Big Butler Fair in July and at the ongoing 77th annual Butler Farm Show is the theme of the third in the planned 22 series of trading cards.
The first nine-card series, the “Presentation” series, features bureau members who put on public presentations about their operations, and the second “Big Butler Fair” series highlights members who showed at the fair.
The cards are being produced from June this year to June 2026. June is National Dairy Month.
Fair to Farm Show series cards are available from farmers and vendors at the show. People who collect all nine of the free cards and take them to the bureau’s booth get to go home with a free T-shirt and the cards.
At Goldscheitter Dairy, established in 1923, five generations of the family tend to a herd of 430 cows, milk 210 of them, and grow corn and hay on their 800-acre spread. Other family members operate a tree farm and a blueberry farm in Buffalo Township.
Goldscheitter said money her daughters have made showing cows and through the sale of cheese made from their cows’ milk has paid for tuition at Butler County Community College and for a car.
At the farm show, some of the visitors who stop in the barn have never seen a cow up close and they get to pet the calves, she said.
“A lot of the general public doesn’t understand where their food comes from,” Goldscheitter said.
The trading cards, which include information about the farms, serve as a bridge between the public and farmers, Snow said.
She said the cards were supposed to be a digital, statewide initiative. A member of the state Farm to Table board asked a Butler County Farm Bureau member if the organization could come up with digital farmer trading cards to promote the Farm to Table program, but money for the endeavor was held up.
“So we decided to do it ourselves, but with real cards,” Snow said.
The cards are great for publicity and teach people about farming and farming-related businesses, said Linda Cranmer, who family owns Heasley’s Nurseries and Cranmer Angus Farm in Summit Township. Heasley’s Nurseries is featured in the new series of cards.
“It’s a little different. It brings attention to agriculture and gets youth involved,” said Linda’s husband, Andrew Cranmer.
David Schultheis, of the family-owned Crick Bottom Shorthorns cattle farm in Slippery Rock, also has a card.
“It’s a cool and special way we can showcase the different kinds of farms in Butler County. This is what we love to do. We love agriculture,” Schultheis said.
