SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) – For New York farmers, the New York State Fair is a place to show off their best livestock and top crops.

It’s also a place to learn about emmer, ornamental gourds, boar goats, large animal pet motels, worm-raising, hydroponics, barn dances and the myriad of agricultural alternatives that a growing number of farmers are turning to bolster their income and stay in farming.

“Farming is in the blood. It’s not easy to give it up,” said Mary Ellen Chesboro, the fair’s agricultural manager.

“Alternative farming is giving farmers an opportunity to keep doing what they love, a way to keep their farms going,” said Chesboro, whose family runs a 60-cow dairy farm in Oswego County.

Chesboro and her husband have been exploring the possibility of raising boar goats for meat as a way to supplement their farm income. They also sell 60-pound bales of hay to a neighboring farmer, who repackages them in smaller bales to sell at a profit to pet owners.

“There can be a lot of different ways to use the land and the equipment, but there are a lot of questions you have to answer first,” she said.

Farmers can get some of those answers at the fair, which began its annual 12-day run on Thursday and continues through Labor Day.

Exhibits and information are parceled throughout the 375-acre fairgrounds and its 21 permanent buildings, Chesboro said. Fairgoers, for example, can learn about hydroponics – growing crops in water instead of soil – from the Future Farmers of America exhibit; growing specialty or ethnic crops, such as emmer, a type of wheat, in the horticulture building; or raising rabbits for meat and fur at the poultry building.

Alan Brown travels from Doylestown, Pa., to exhibit his llamas at the New York fair. He also raises alpacas, a smaller relative of the llama that has much more valuable fur and has exploded as a show and breeding animal, frequently commanding tens of thousands of dollars for a single animal.

“We were taking a pounding on the stock market so about three years ago we took our retirement money and invested it in llamas and alpacas,” said Brown. “It’s proven to be the smartest move we’ve ever made.”

It’s hard to say when and where “alternative” farming began or detail exactly how significant it has become, said Mary Gold, of the Alternative Farming Systems Information Center in Beltsville, Md., part of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s National Agriculture Library.

Farmers have always sought ways to supplement their incomes. Making cheese from their surplus milk. Turning apples into cider. Soapmaking. Tanning hides. Wheatweaving. Baking bread. Confections and candles. All are “alternative” agriculture enterprises that have been around for centuries as ways for farmers to make more money.

The definition of alternative farming is broad – basically it’s anything that’s not considered traditional farming, Gold said.

Ethnic crops, agri-tourism, corn mazes, petting zoos, are all considered “alternative farming.” Also falling into that classification are farmers that open their land to hunting, fishing or nature hikes, hold barn dances or give sleigh rides, or offer vacation stays.

Still other farmers may provide composting products or services, custom machinery work, farm sitting or open their farms for weddings or religious services.

And even that loose definition comes qualified, added Jessica Chittenden, a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which runs the fair.

For instance, cranberries, a major agricultural product in Wisconsin and Massachusetts, were considered an alternative crop in New York, when an Oswego County farmer tried to grow the state’s first commercial crop a few years ago.

Gold noted that as some alternatives become more popular, they become less alternative and more conventional. Organic crops, for instance, have exploded, outgrowing their one-time description as a niche product.

Once sold in only a limited number of health food stores, organic products are now available in 73 percent of all conventional grocery stores, she said.

For many alternative crops and livestock, Gold said, the government does not have any accurate historical data to determine current growth.

While the 2002 farm survey can tell shows 6,653 U.S. farms were involved in aquaculture – raising fish for food or bait – the numbers were not available in the 1997 farm survey. It’s the same for bison (4,132 farms), deer (4,901), elk (2,371) and llamas (16,887).

“Today, alternative agriculture is limited only by a farmer’s ingenuity and imagination,” Chittenden said.