State Fair’s Soybean Education Program receives international award

WORTHINGTON – The Ohio State Fair, in con­junc­tion with the Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil, has received an award of dis­tinc­tion in the inau­gural Soy­bean and Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity Awards com­pe­ti­tion from the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Fairs and Expo­si­tions (IAFE) for its soy­bean edu­ca­tion pro­gram at the 2012 Fair.

In addi­tion to receiv­ing first place in its atten­dance divi­sion for the “edu­ca­tional event, exhibit or pro­gram for the fair­go­ing pub­lic – soy use” cat­e­gory, the Ohio State Fair was pre­sented with the cov­eted Judge’s Choice Award for the entire Soy­bean and Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity Awards com­pe­ti­tion, which rec­og­nized fairs in four dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories, and in each of five divi­sions based upon atten­dance. The entries were eval­u­ated and judged by a team of indus­try lead­ers selected from the mem­ber­ship of the IAFE.

From left to right, Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Kirk Mer­ritt, Ohio State Fair Gen­eral Man­ager Vir­gil Strick­ler, Chair­man of the Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil Board of Trustees and Han­cock County soy­bean farmer John Mot­ter and Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Jen­nifer Cole­man pose with the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Fairs and Expo­si­tions (IAFE) Soy­bean and Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity Judges’ Choice Award for the Ohio State Fair’s soy edu­ca­tion program.

The multi-faceted pro­gram was devel­oped in part­ner­ship with the Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil and soy­bean check­off to edu­cate fair­go­ers, farm­ers and con­ces­sion ven­dors about the state’s most abun­dant and ver­sa­tile crop, the soy­bean: Many con­ces­sion­aires made their fried foods health­ier by adopt­ing the use of trans fat-free high-oleic soy­bean oil in their food booths, fea­tur­ing edu­ca­tional sig­nage along­side the deli­cious treats. Var­i­ous addi­tional soy-based prod­ucts, such as hand san­i­tizer and paint, were used through­out the 360-acre Ohio Expo Cen­ter. A final edu­ca­tional ele­ment was the spon­sor­ship of sev­eral build­ings and the entire junior live­stock show, capped with Ohio Soy­bean Day, Sat­ur­day, Aug. 4. On this day, Ohio soy­bean farm­ers greeted fair­go­ers and answered ques­tions about the uses of soy­beans and how farm­ers grow them. Addi­tion­ally, pot­ted soy­bean plants along with sig­nage shar­ing inter­est­ing facts such as “one acre of soy­beans can pro­duce 82,368 crayons” were located through­out the grounds.

The Soy­bean and Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity Awards were devel­oped to encour­age fairs to uti­lize soy prod­ucts in their oper­a­tions, edu­cate the pub­lic about the soy prod­ucts, to incor­po­rate envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able prac­tices in fair oper­a­tions as well as to edu­cate the fair­go­ing pub­lic about envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able practices.

The Ohio Expo Cen­ter hosts the 2013 Ohio State Fair, which will run July 24-Aug. 4. In 2012, 840,306 peo­ple attended the Ohio State Fair.

For more infor­ma­tion, call 1–888-OHO-EXPO or 1–614-644-FAIR. On the Web, visit them at ohiostatefair.com.

The Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil is gov­erned by a vol­un­teer farmer board, which directs the Soy­bean Pro­mo­tion and Research Pro­gram. The program’s pri­mary goal is to improve soy­bean prof­itabil­ity by tar­get­ing edu­ca­tion, mar­ket­ing and research and devel­op­ment projects through the invest­ment of farmer-contributed funds. To learn more, visit www.soyohio.org and www.ohiosoybeanfarmers.org.

Posted by Tina Murdock on Feb 24 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.