Lammakers consider plan to help fund beleagued state agricultural fairs.
Although New Hampshire?s has celebrated summer with agricultural fairs since 1722, the tradition has clearly fallen on hard times. The last fifteen years has seen the number of fairs drop from 22 to 11, and several more are on the brink of closure. Senator Ned Gordon is sponsor of a plan to provide fairs with 500,000 of state money over the next two years. He says he?s seen first hand how tough agricultural fairs now have it.
In my particular district, I have 2 state fairs. I have the state fair in Haverhill and I have the Belknap county 4H fair in Belknap. Both of them work on the edge. I also had until recently the Plymouth state fair. Plymouth state fair also suffered the consequences we?ve talked about and it no longer exists.
The consequences Gordon refers to was gradual but inexorable finacial failure. He says such might have been through state support ? in the form of tax breaks, and direct subsidy. From the 1930s until 1987, the state provided agricultural fairs with about 400,000 a year. The money was generated by Rockingham Park, and was the sweetener that helped push pari-mutuel wagering through the legislature in 1932. When Rockingham Park burned down in 1987, funding was suspended, and never renewed. Agricultural Commissioner Steve Taylor says that move left New Hampshire fairs all too vulnerable, partucularly in an age of limitless entertainment options.
They?re being besieged by the alternatives for discretionary spending?.And that?s the big challenge. How do you promote yourself? You have to coninitually reinvest yourself if you?re going to survive as a fair today.
But Taylor also acknowledges that such reinvention is risky business ? and doesn?t necessarily play to what he says are the fairs?strong suit.
The agricultural dimension: the livestock, the canned vegetables, the quilts?.Those kind of thins are what people expect to find at a fair. If there not there, they?re probably won?t seem like they?ve been to a fair and probably won?t come back next year. That?s why it?s essential to keep that dimension. They?ve got to continue to have the agriculture.
Taylor also says the fairs also serve an crucial if often overlooked purpose of fostering charity.
Whether it?s the united church of Webster of the boy scout troop of Newport or the volunteer fire department of Sandwich. Those fairs provide venues where those organizations make a good portion of their annual budget. That?s the number one benefit these fairs impart to the overall New Hampshire community.
Such an argument wasn?t lost on the leaders of many state fairs who attended the bill?s hearing and who told lawmakers that he and other organizers often lend assistance to less financially successful fairs for very similar reasons. Nor was it lost on Senator Gordon, said the bill was an opportunity to establish a more charitable state identity.
I think investing in the fairs tells us something about ourselves and how we want ourselves defined?..in terms of our community in terms of our state?..That we want to be something more than just people who don?t weant to spend money.
The proposal is expected to come to the house floor on Thursday.
