Jeff Hajny

    A local farmer will soon be acknowledged for all of his hard work.
     On Monday, March 17, Bob Briggs of Seward will be named to the Seward County Hall of Agricultural Achievement.
     Briggs has been farming in the Seward area his entire life. His father, Rex Briggs, was inducted into the Seward County Hall of Agricultural Achievement in 2000.
     "My family has been farming on the same piece of land for over 100 years," he said. "I've bascally been farming since I could walk. I remember when I was young we would feed the cattle while riding horses. That's just the way things were."
     He has been featured on the cover of Nebraska Farmer multiple times for the many firsts he and his family has been a part of in the state.
     Briggs and his family were one of the first in the state to use minimum tillage machines for a process called one-trip corn planting, which involves the use of small rubber wheels which pack seeds into firm ground instead of using disks.
     They discovered this in the 1960s.
     Along with this, the Briggs family was also one of the first in Nebraska to use galvanized, oxygen-free storage silos to hold feed for cattle in the 1960s.
     This kept the corn moist and allowed for the elimination of spoilage and seepage losses and allowed for more beef and milk per acre to be harvested.
     "This had been done in Colorado before we found out about it, but we were among the first in Nebraska to try this," Briggs said.
     Briggs said he wants to accept this on behalf of his entire family.
     "I didn't do it alone. It was a family thing," he said. "My brother (Bill) and I did it together. We're pretty fortunate really to have been working on the same land for four generations now."
     Briggs will be inducted at the Ag Recognition Dinner sponsored by the Seward Kiwanis and Chamber of Commerce on March 17 starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Seward Ag Pavilion.
     The event will feature a meal catered by Sterling Silver and speaker Craig Buescher of DeWeese.