Ruff’s Seed Farms: Exhibitors at Every Farm Science Review

Cour­tesy Ohio State University

The agri­cul­ture indus­try has evolved tremen­dously in the last fifty years. While this evo­lu­tion has mod­i­fied exhibits seen at the Farm Sci­ence Review, one fam­ily seed corn com­pany remains a sta­ple in the exhibitor line-up year after year.

Ruff’s Seed Farms, located in Amanda, Ohio, was estab­lished in 1936 and is an early pio­neer of hybrid seed corn devel­op­ment in Ohio. Ruff’s has attended the Farm Sci­ence Review reg­u­larly for the past 49 years. Part of Ruff’s exhibit has even trav­eled through those nearly-fifty years with the com­pany. The counter that is included in their dis­play area today, where they have key con­ver­sa­tions with atten­dees, is the orig­i­nal one that was used in 1963.

Allan Reid, Gen­eral Man­ager of Ruff’s Seed Farms, whose father-in-law began the com­pany, has attended every show with the excep­tion of the 2001 show. Since he was trav­el­ing around the time of Sep­tem­ber 11, he was not able to fly home for days due to the ter­ror­ist attacks.

“The one thing I remem­ber see­ing at the Farm Sci­ence Review for the first time was mon­i­tors on planters,” says Reid. “I saw that and just knew that they would really change things in our business.”

Ruff’s busi­ness has also evolved over the 49 years of shows. Devel­op­ment of double-cross genet­ics, insect resis­tance and Round-up have changed things for the com­pany, in addi­tion to their acquired licens­ing by Monsanto.

Because Ruff’s Seed Farms employ­ees are man­ag­ing the booth dur­ing the review, they rarely have time to walk around and see many exhibits. “The best part of the Farm Sci­ence Review is hav­ing the oppor­tu­nity to meet with cur­rent and also poten­tial cus­tomers. It is impor­tant to use that time to con­nect with them at our exhibit,” says Reid.
The 50th annual Farm Sci­ence Review will take place Sep­tem­ber 18–20, 2012. Tickets are avail­able for sale at local agribusi­nesses and any OSU Exten­sion office for $5 in advance, or $8 at the gate. Chil­dren 5 and under are free. For more infor­ma­tion, go to fsr.osu.edu.

The Farm Sci­ence Review is spon­sored by the Col­lege of Food, Agri­cul­tural, and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sio­n­and the Ohio Agri­cul­tural Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter. It attracts more than 140,000 vis­i­tors from all over the coun­try and Canada, who come for three days to peruse 4,000 prod­uct lines from 600 com­mer­cial exhibitors and learn the lat­est in agri­cul­tural research, con­ser­va­tion, fam­ily and nutri­tion, gar­den­ing and landscape.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Jun 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.