In two weeks, more than 100 of Oregon’s top niche horticulturists will gather to celebrate their craft at a fair considered the first of its kind, one that promises $10,000 in prizes and colorful, proud ribbons to the best among them.
Farmers will be judged “4-H” style, they’ve been told, though their crops inspire categories that are far from heartland tradition.
Sativa, indica, hybrid.
These guys harvest pot.
The inaugural Oregon Cannabis Growers’ Fair, according its website, “is an opportunity to bring the entire industry under one roof to learn from ‘master growers,’” and will feature the state’s “first-ever cannabis live plant competition.”
Judged on a litany of qualities, including color, shape, node stacking and aroma, the top nine winning pot plants will then graduate to a grander stage – the Oregon State Fair – a move that has caused some controversy among traditionalists in the Pacific Northwest.
“We are doing it 4-H style,” Don Morse, chairman of the Oregon Cannabis Business Council, told The Oregonian. “You get a blue, purple or yellow ribbon. We are celebrating the plant as a farm crop from Oregon.”
But it’s important to note, state fair spokesman Dan Cox told The Washington Post, that these plants won’t be featured in the same tent as the winners of the fair’s “Curviest Vegetable” and “Most Misshapen Fruit” competition, nor will their pungent scent waft alongside the competing cattle and swine.
These plants, under the strict watch of security guards, will be relegated to the commercial expo hall, next to tables rocking the vote and salesmen pitching the benefits of owning a ShamWow!, completely separate from the exhibits embodying “Head, Heart, Hands, Health.”
The plants, at least this year, are not sanctioned state fair exhibits or part of any official agricultural competition, but are considered a prop of sorts for the Oregon Cannabis Business Council booth. Legalized last July, recreational marijuana has been widely embraced statewide, and an educational table at the state fair last year by the business council stirred little controversy among attendees, Cox said.
“It went really smoothly,” Cox said. “There was no negative response.”
In fact, the booth piqued interest.
The fair leadership signed off on the presence of pot plants this year, the spokesman said, as long as the business council agreed to a set of rules: the cannabis will be in a greenhouse, with security standing guard, and nobody under the age of 21 is allowed to sneak a peek. The fair’s embrace of cannabis, however trepidatious, is a testament to its commitment to diversity, Cox said, despite its 151 years of agricultural tradition.
“The Oregon State Fair is approaching the whole arena of cannabis one step at a time,” Cox said. “This serves as an incremental step in terms of the role of cannabis at the Oregon State Fair.”
For Morse and his organization, the presence of pot seems a bit more revolutionary.
“One of the mottos for the Oregon Cannabis Business Council is safe access in a socially responsible manner,” Morse told Leafly. “We regularly reach out to the community with some form of education, to destigmatize the industry and the plant. For the people at the state fair to let this happen is really groundbreaking.”
In addition to the greenhouse, companies from across the country will gather at their exhibition to offer expertise to growers on a variety of topics, including soil and lighting, Leafly reported.
“The legislature has designated cannabis as a farm crop in Oregon, and we are treating it that way,” Morse told Leafly. “This is the way to celebrate the plant and the grower. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”
What there will not be, Morse and Cox said, is consumption of any kind.
In 2014, the Denver County Fair in Colorado, another state that has legalized recreational marijuana, featured a 21-and-over “Pot Pavilion” that digitally displayed plants and edibles. No real weed was allowed, and speed joint-rolling context used oregano instead of pot.
The pavilion was canceled the following year, however, after fairgoers sued a company accused of handing out marijuana-laced chocolate. Organizers said it was canceled because of lack of support.
The Oregon State Fair, with a 2016 theme of “Here Comes the Fun,” will be held Aug. 26 to Sept. 5.
And though state fair leadership didn’t expect the pot plants exhibition to garner so much national attention, Cox said it’s a reflection of where Oregon stands as a state.
“Folks are kind of enjoying the perceived friction between state fair values and pop culture,” the spokesman said.
“It’s a truly diverse fair.”