David W. Smith/ Daily NewsA pair of specially trained Labradors retrieve a cooler of cold drinks at the Family Farm Fun Picnic at the Ballance farm Thursday.

More than 200 people gathered Thursday at the Triple Oaks Farm afternoon for a picnic, live music and entertainment as local farms remain challenged by extreme temperatures and little rain.

The Family Fun Farm Picnic, organized and sponsored by the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, was a gathering of the farm community and people who aren’t involved with farming operations.

According to Joe Neal Ballance, owner of Triple Oaks Farm, the event let non-farmers see and understand some of the perils and joys farmers experience.

&#8220Everybody in the community is seeing the effect of lack of rain,” Ballance said. &#8220Now we realize we will take rain when we can get it.” But weather is a concern for farmers every day, he said, as the farming community prides itself with feeding the American public.

Ballance is feeling the effects of the drought firsthand.

&#8220It’s prompted us to shell corn a little sooner,” Ballance said, adding that because of the harsh weather, the stalk quality of corn crops may be affected.

&#8220The corn stalk is like a woman that’s pregnant, it will do all it can to produce a seed,” Ballance said, &#8220even under stress.”

Hay crops have been hit with both weather extremes and never recovered, according to Billy Sears with Sears Farms, which farms one-third of Warren County’s hay.

The freeze earlier this year drove away the first bales, and now a shortage of water threatens existing hay farmers, Sears said.

Hay specialist Tom Keene with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture said last month that some pastures have recovered slightly as more rain has fallen over much of the state in July, but there will be an ongoing need for more hay until next spring.

Keene said it will be a real challenge for producers to stretch their hay until new crops can be grown.

&#8220You need water to make hay,” Sears said. &#8220It’s not going to be there. It’s too late.”

The University of Kentucky has estimated feed losses in Kentucky due to the freeze and the drought at $45 million. Yields of first cuttings averaged about 50 percent below normal, according to UK.

Meanwhile, Sears said he has never seen water levels and local lakes and rivers this low in his entire life.

&#8220It’s never been this dry,” Sears said.

The Family Fun Farm Picnic was organized by the chamber of commerce as a part of Agri-Business Awareness week, which is celebrated ever year, according to program coordinator Jennifer Brassell.

Ballance said he held a similar event about a decade ago, for the chance for farmers and non-farmers to get mingle.

&#8220Too many times we in the agriculture community become too busy to communicate our needs,” he said. &#8220We feel so much pressure to get our work done we’re poor communicators.”

But Ballance said although farmers constitute about 2 percent of the country’s population, the group is political force as a high user of energy – whether it be diesel, propane or natural gas, and a community that &#8220buys retail, sells wholesale and pays the freight both ways,” he said.

Ballance said an old saying from his grandfather sums up the perspective of wet and dry weather for farmers: &#8220A wet year will scare you to death but a dry year will starve you to death.”