A horse enters the pool at the Meadowview Equine Center in Beaver County, which trains horses for Mountaineer racetrack in West Virginia. The facilities include this 10-foot-deep pool. Swimming seven laps is equivalent to a horse running one mile.

This is the time of year that County Farm Bureaus host legislative tours in each county. The idea behind the legislative tour is that county, state and federal elected officials are invited to tour a working farm, learning about the specific farm operation.

At the conclusion of the tour, Farm Bureau members remind elected officials' of how pending legislation would affect Farm Bureau members.

In some cases, existing laws are recommended for modification.

Since most elected officials are not from a farm background, the legislative tours provide a forum to explain ag issues to our elected officials and hopefully they gain a clearer understanding of Pennsylvania's No. 1 industry.

The attached photograph is from the Lawrence/Beaver Farm Bureau meeting that was held Aug. 23 at Meadowview Equine Center in Beaver County. Meadowview is a horse training facility for Mountaineer racetrack. Its world class facilities include a ½-mile racetrack, swimming pool and 117 state-of-the-art horse stalls.The photograph shows horses swimming in the pool as part of their training program. The pool is 10 feet deep; when they swim seven laps it is equivalent to running one mile. Pool water is kept clean by two large filter systems; pool water is changed every few days also.The Butler Farm Bureau legislative tour is also scheduled for a horse farm in Lancaster Township. Equine operations seem to be replacing livestock farms in many areas. In fact, it could be there are more horses than cattle or sheep in some townships.

Northwest Pennsylvania dairy farmers now can apply for grants to make improvements to their farms through the Center for Dairy Excellence.The 13 grants of $3,000 each can be used for pre-construction costs related to farm expansion or modernization projects."Northwest Pennsylvania has the land base and infrastructure to support more cows and more milk production," said John Frey, executive director for the center. "We hope this grant opportunity will ease dairy producers' burden of planning an expansion or modernization project and help increase individual farm milk production while strengthening the region's milk supply as a whole."Identified by the Pennsylvania Dairy Task Force as a key growth region for the dairy industry, the center is providing grants to help cover costs such as design, engineering, site development, test borings and permits. The counties included in the program are Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango and Warren.The grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, with some consideration given to the requirements outlined in the application.Dairy producers must complete a one-page application that requests details about the farm and the expansion or modernization project. Download the application at www.centerfordairyexcellence.org under "Grants and Loans."For more information, producers can call the Center for Dairy Excellence at 717-346-0849.<B><I>Luke Fritz is executive director of the Butler County Farm Service Agency.</I></B>