Harrisburg, Pa. - The Farm Show is a week long tribute to agriculture. Call it a farming fiesta.

Ruth Collins is like a lot of Farm Show visitors, sampling tasty treats. "I'm back for the second time this week, actually. It's a great experience," she said. "The best part is the food."

There's also food for thought. Like how crucial it is that Pennsylvania can feed itself; thanks to its farmers.

"We have trouble importing a safe toy rubber duck. How would we ever rely on a foreign food source? We need to make sure people of Pennsylvania safeguard the domestic food supply," said Carl Shaffer, president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.

Shaffer says dairy farmers were especially hard hit last year. When the global economy tanked, so did their exports, so did their prices and so did their profits.

William Lesher, a dairy farmer from Bernville, says it was his worst year in decades. "The milk price is about two to three dollars below the cost of production, so everyday you're going to work and you're losing money," he said.

But Lesher is bullish about the future. He says the midstate is perfectly situated near New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston. "We're within what, a third of the population of the country? And they need to eat," he said.

Lesher doesn't come to the Farm Show to teach geography. His lessons are simpler. "People don't understand where milk comes from. They think chocolate milk comes from brown cows, so we try and educate everybody," he said.

Consider Ruth Collins educated. "We go to the grocery story and pick a bag off the shelf and we're not really thinking that was in somebody's farm," she said. "At some point, somebody actually grew that."

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