Reprinted from KY3. See the video and original post on their website. Mike Fries is an FCS Financial customer who works with our Chillicothe office.
You can see a lot of different kinds of farm equipment at this weekend's Fall Farm Fest at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds in Springfield.
4 year old Wyatt Coble says his favorite part of Farm Fest is the John Deere tractors.
Big green tractors are pretty cool, but besides the machinery, live stock, and usual farm fest fare, there's one vendor tucked in a corner of the fair grounds who's selling another kind of green technology.
Mike Fries is a life long farmer, and his company MSF Farms helps farmers harness the power of the sun.
From solar powered gates that can open on a timer, to a monitor that can text you when your cattle run out of water, to a portable solar powered water pump you can move from well to well, the power of the sun is being brought to the farm in a lot of new ways.
"It's a technology that you don't have to have electricity in every part of your farm to operate something," says Fries.
Fries says the cost of solar panels is coming down so farmers can use them to make their farms and ranches more efficient.
"It's time saved, energy saved, [a farmer] can be making money while the live stock is making money. He don't constantly got to be with the animals," says Fries.
But Fries says although sun powered farm equipment present a cost savings over time, some are still reluctant to put the new technology to use.
"It's gonna take another generation to fully accept it," says Fries, but he says the benefits of solar are as clear as a jolt from a solar powered electric fence, since sunlight is free, unlike gas or electricity from the grid.
"The sun is everywhere, so as long as we have sun, solar power is gonna be available no matter where you're at," says Fries.
Fall Farm Fest continues at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds through Sunday (October 5).
You can see a lot of different kinds of farm equipment at this weekend's Fall Farm Fest at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds in Springfield.
4 year old Wyatt Coble says his favorite part of Farm Fest is the John Deere tractors.
Big green tractors are pretty cool, but besides the machinery, live stock, and usual farm fest fare, there's one vendor tucked in a corner of the fair grounds who's selling another kind of green technology.
Mike Fries is a life long farmer, and his company MSF Farms helps farmers harness the power of the sun.
From solar powered gates that can open on a timer, to a monitor that can text you when your cattle run out of water, to a portable solar powered water pump you can move from well to well, the power of the sun is being brought to the farm in a lot of new ways.
"It's a technology that you don't have to have electricity in every part of your farm to operate something," says Fries.
Fries says the cost of solar panels is coming down so farmers can use them to make their farms and ranches more efficient.
"It's time saved, energy saved, [a farmer] can be making money while the live stock is making money. He don't constantly got to be with the animals," says Fries.
But Fries says although sun powered farm equipment present a cost savings over time, some are still reluctant to put the new technology to use.
"It's gonna take another generation to fully accept it," says Fries, but he says the benefits of solar are as clear as a jolt from a solar powered electric fence, since sunlight is free, unlike gas or electricity from the grid.
"The sun is everywhere, so as long as we have sun, solar power is gonna be available no matter where you're at," says Fries.
Fall Farm Fest continues at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds through Sunday (October 5).
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