To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the employment of the first county agent in New York state, which launched what would become Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE), the New York Farm Bureau and CCE joined forces March 21 in a ceremony in Binghamton, where both institutions were born.

In March 1911, in what could be described as the original agricultural economic development project, John Barron, New York's first county agent, was hired by the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce with backing from the railroad and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. What was started in Binghamton grew into a movement that has enriched the lives of New Yorkers for the past 100 years and has become a nationwide effort.

To mark the John Barron Day Celebration, Helene Dillard, director of CCE, and Dean Norton, president of the New York Farm Bureau, rededicated a stone marker where Barron held his first field meeting with a farmer named James Quinn (now adjacent to the HSBC bank on Upper Front Street). Local officials, representatives of state government, leaders from Cornell and the farm bureau, local CCE and descendants of Barron were on hand.

"John Barron Day is basically a day where we're getting together to recognize that the farm bureau and the Cornell Cooperative Extension have been in existence for over 100 years, and it was here in Binghamton in 1911 that a phenomenon was started that swept across the county," Norton said.

It all began in 1910 when the secretary of the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce proposed a "bureau" of the chamber to "extend to farmers the same opportunities for cooperation enjoyed by the businessmen of the city." The nascent "farm bureau" began a partnership between local residents and New York's College of Agriculture at Cornell that is world-renowned.

The partnership was replicated in many parts of the state and within a few years, extension associations had been formed in nearly every county of the state. 
In 1955, a congressional order separated the farm bureau and extension; each organization then specialized: the farm bureau actively lobbies on issues that directly impacted its members; cooperative extension, as a publicly funded organization, continued in its educational role.

Now, 100 years later, CCE operates in 35 counties across the state and is known for its agriculture programming and its work on energy and the environment, nutrition and health, and family and community development. Supported by some 200 faculty members at Cornell, local CCE staff and volunteers work with state residents to apply scientific knowledge to real-world problems. The New York Farm Bureau has evolved into the largest farm organization in the state, with a membership of some 30,000 farm families, and into a national organization that advocates for farmers across the country.

Each organization will commemorate their centennial year with a variety of activities throughout 2011.