You meet your tour guide just inside the door of the latest addition to Fair Oaks Farms' agritourism operation. First there was The Dairy Adventure, then The Pig Adventure and now The Crop Adventure. WinField, a division of Land O’Lakes, is the official sponsor of this newest attraction.

The tour guide today is Jamie Miller, a 10-year veteran of Fair Oaks Farms' agritourism project and manager of all three adventures.

Here is a six-stop tour to begin your journey into crop production — past, present and future.

VISITORS WELCOME: The newest attraction at Fair Oaks Farms is The Crop Adventure, sponsored by WinField.

Stop 1. Catch a glimpse of the showstopper! One of the first things you see after viewing a short video about modern agriculture is a ball that appears to be suspended in midair. Miller says this rare display can reflect various images. Here it’s depicting a large city — part of the population farmers feed now, with more coming in the future.

Stop 2. Visit the 1920s — part of the past.   Before you can envision the future, you need to appreciate the past. Miller explains that in the 1920s, there were already 1.9 billion people to feed in the world.

Stop 3. Look at key ag advances of the last century. Refrigeration and the availability of electricity to rural Indiana and rural America changed agriculture forever. It increased farmers' ability to meet a growing demand for food.

Stop 4. See how agriculture began to adopt technology. The younger generation, even younger farmers, may have difficulty recalling a time before yield monitors, GPS mapping and autosteering. Those developments, as depicted in this display and interactive elements that accompany it, underscore the importance of that time period.

TRIP UNDER THE SOIL: Your kids might think they’re in a cave, but this portion of the tour is designed to help you feel like you’re under the soil surface. Fair Oaks Farms attractions manager Jamie Miller (right) explains the setting to Mike Wilson, editor of Farm Futures magazine.

Stop 5. Go below the soil surface and learn why soil health is important. You experience a tractor rumbling overhead, giving you a feel for what creatures inside the soil experience when farm equipment passes over. This stop along the way explains soil health, and shows why it is important.

Stop 6. Learn why both soil and water are critical to the future. The message should become clear to anyone who passes through the underground soil room. It takes knowledge about caring for both soil and water to produce the amount of food that will soon be needed.