Joe Duncan remembers a time when corn, soybeans and tobacco were not the dominant crops in Bowling Green. When he was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, he recalls acres and acres of strawberry fields.

“They were a fairly big crop at that time,” said Duncan, a farmer and retired agriculture professor.

Agriculture has shifted since Bowling Green was established, and farmers have battled changing trends, poor economies and harmful weather. But local farmers have overcome challenges and continue today to plow their fields and tend to their animals.

“Now, we’re pretty much corn and soybeans and wheat,” Duncan said. “And beef cattle on the livestock end.”

An estimated 1,824 farms exist in Warren County, including 150 corn farms, 29 wheat farms and 83 soybean farms – most of the rest are cattle farms, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture figures from 2007.

Warren County is home to about 89 tobacco farms, according to the USDA, but there was a time when tobacco was one of the largest crops in the area, Duncan said.

In fact, most farmers cultivated tobacco until a few years ago, when the tobacco market buyout – which eliminated a majority of government support and made tobacco growers more vulnerable to free-market risks – forced many farmers to give up the crop, he said.

Until then, “it put a lot of kids through college and bought farmers trucks and supplies throughout the year,” he said.

Dairy also was once a big part of local agriculture, but the number of dairy farms has dropped during the past few decades. That’s mainly due to economics – dairy farms require high labor costs because it takes so much work to properly operate them, and the cost of cattle feed has skyrocketed over the years, Duncan said.

Carl Chaney owns one of the county’s few dairy farms and says he is able to stay in business because his farm doubles as an agritourism attraction – a recent trend among local farmers.

Chaney’s Dairy Barn is a restaurant, ice cream shop and small store in Bowling Green. The Chaneys hold several community events and host tours of their nearby farm.

“For us, without agritourism, probably the cows would have had to leave,” said Chaney, who is also chairman of the Kentucky Agritourism Advisory Council. “Milk prices are so cyclical, and it’s very difficult.”

The dairy farm has been in Chaney’s family for generations – he has photos of his great-grandfather herding cattle down the streets of Bowling Green. Chaney opened his shop in 2003 and initially just wanted to sell ice cream made from his own milk. He never considered it agritourism, he said.

“The good part about agritourism is people can look at what other people do, and they can make their own ideas,” Chaney said. “I’m seeing other people who are looking at agritourism and looking at ways to add to their farm.”

And agritourism is largely untouched by a weak economy, Chaney said, because those sites tend to offer cheap, local activities that families can afford in a slow economy, he said.

Over the centuries, local farmers have battled the highs and lows of the economy, from the Great Depression to the latest recession. But the lowest point that Duncan recalls was during the 1980s.

During that time, farmers battled soaring interest rates on farm loans, a grain embargo and a severe drought – at the same time.

“We had a triple whammy there,” he said.

Duncan remembers the drought of 1988 that caused many farmers to lose yields, but for Duncan, it doesn’t compare to this summer. So far, the past few months will go down in Bowling Green history as one of the worst droughts, if not the worst drought, he said.

“I think this one is going to take the cake with the ice cream and icing,” he said.

Locally, farmers are battling withered crops, dried ponds and parched fields. There is no hope for a second hay harvest this year, and the average Kentucky farmer will lose 60 percent of his or her hay crop, James Comer, Kentucky commissioner of agriculture, told the Daily News.

And corn, one of Bowling Green’s biggest crops, is suffering. Farmers are reporting massive losses in corn yields, which will cause a lack of food for cattle and soaring prices at grocery stores and gas pumps, Comer said.

“I think this is by far the worst corn crop Warren County has ever had,” Duncan said. “I don’t think it’s even going to be close.”

So what does the future hold? Farmers will soon be forced to find ways – through genetics and other methods – to produce better yields on fewer acres as experts predict that both the population and temperature will increase, Duncan said.

“Available land is getting less and less every year,” he said. “So, it’s not like we can go out there and get a lot of new land.”