Beaufort County’s Ag Expo is going to be a little different this year — with a bigger crowd and more counties involved.

The Beaufort County Ag Expo is now the Northeast Regional Ag Expo and will include a group of seven counties, including Beaufort, Bertie, Hyde, Martin, Pitt, Tyrrell and Washington.

Beaufort County Schools is partnering with the school systems and agriculture programs in the seven counties to host the expo for agriculture students in November at the Sen. Bob Martin Ag Center in Williamston.

Steve Griffin, a local farmer who originally came to the schools with the expo idea suggested by his son, said visitors from other counties had attended one of the previous Beaufort County expos and decided they wanted to get involved with the program this year.

There were two previous Ag expos in 2013 and 2014, both of which were held at Northside High School.

“The agriculture industry is more than just driving a tractor,” he said. “We try to get vendors in that have anything to do with agriculture.”

Griffin said those involved with the Ag Expo are in the process of finding donations to cover the roughly $30,000 cost. He said the planning process involves finding someone to provide food for the kids, covering the cost of T-shirts, working out the logistics of getting 1,500 kids to the expo, meeting with school superintendents and setting up the vendors.

The school systems will arrange for bus transportation for the students to Williamston this year.

The 2015 expo will include booths for safety information and businesses related to the agriculture industry as well as a selection of community colleges and universities with agriculture programs, Griffin said.

“It shows them different avenues of agriculture to go into,” he said. “All these kids are in the FFA (Future Farmers of America) or in an Ag-related program at their school. … It’s like a field trip for them.”

Sarah Hodges, public information officer for Beaufort County Schools, said the program is looking for sponsors, exhibitors (vendors) or both. She said sponsors give donations to help cover the costs of feeding the attendees and making T-shirts.

Exhibitors, which Hodges said is a more appropriate name for the vendors since they aren’t selling anything, do not have to pay a fee to participate in the expo, but donations are encouraged, she said.

“We want our students to stay here and to understand they can have a thriving, successful career here and stay in eastern North Carolina,” Hodges said.

 

The Northeast Regional Ag Expo will take place on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015, and those interested in sponsoring or exhibiting can register online at www.beaufort.k12.nc.us by scrolling down to the link for the Ag Expo announcement page.