After a return from a near decade and a half hiatus in 2025, the Coffee County Farm City Day will once again be hosted at the Coffee County Fairgrounds on May 2.

The event, hosted by the Coffee County UT Extension at no cost to attendees, will take place from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and aims to offer agriculture education to children and adults alike who may not get it elsewhere.

Coffee County Extension Agent III and Co-Director Amy Willis Prince noted that agriculture education is “critical” tot eh community.

“We’re so many generations removed from being on a farm and having to grow our own food that I think we’ve lost touch with that and we forget,” explained Prince. “I’m just as guilty as anybody else, but we take it for granted that we go to the grocery store and there’s food. We go to our closet and there’s clothes to put on. We forget that it comes from our local farms.”

Alley Dogs, Sips and Stacks and the Pink Apron food trucks will be set up at the fairgrounds since the event occurs during lunch time.

Many activities and demonstrations will be available at the event. Live animals will be on site for attendees to interact with as well as inflatables. Two mobile classrooms from Farm Bureau will be on-hand, one of which has VR headsets that feature a virtual farm tour.

The Coffee County Rescue Squad will have a grain bin rescue display to show the dangers that grain bins can pose, and the Tennessee Department of Agriculture will have their Ag Crimes Unit at the fairgrounds to demonstrate how crimes like theft and arson are investigated on farms.

Duck River will have bucket trucks onsite and there will be farm equipment for kids to see and climb on. Elijah Kirby from Southern Tennessee Weather will give a weather report at the event.

Coffee County’s FFA will also host a game called “Are You Stronger Than a Farmer?” where attendees will get to test their abilities by trying to complete farm tasks like carrying water and hay bales or driving a fence post into the ground.

“I am just excited to have people come, and I love seeing, especially on children’s faces, the looks when they get to pet a goat or a rabbit or see a cow up close and just the realization that they have of “Oh, this is really cool” and that we might even drive some interest in people that want to have careers in agriculture,” enthused Prince.

She also noted the importance of parents and community members realizing the connection that the community has to agriculture and how many things revolve around it.

“It’s important also for the parents and community members to realize we have this connection and that there are so many things that revolve around agriculture in our community,” she said. “I know everyone gets frustrated when you get behind a piece of equipment, but they’re just trying to do their job and feed us, so we need to remember to be patient.”

Coffee County has over 1,200 producers in the county and houses over 700 farms, according to 2022 USDA statistics. Prince said she also enjoys getting to see the children interacting with the farmers and producers of Coffee County.

“I took a picture of my dad who grew up farming,” she recalled. “Our family’s been here since 1812 in the farming industry, and I took a picture of him and he’s kneeling down with one of the kids and they were talking about corn. Just seeing our producers getting to interact with the public is great.”

Prince noted that each producer will have a hat that reads “Coffee County Farmer” and the goal of each child in attendance will be to meet a farmer for which they’ll get a sticker that says “I Met A Farmer Today.”

She also explained that the farmers enjoy interacting with the kids despite it being a tough time of year in farming.

“Everybody’s trying to plant and spray and do everything, but they really do like to come out, and some of them are not always very outgoing, but they do like to have that interaction and talk about what they do and have people be positive and ask questions,” said Prince. “I don’t think we share the ag story as much as we should. Everybody just gets busy doing what they do, but it’s so important and I think they so very much appreciate being able to tell their story to the next generation and to the public.”