MOULTRIE, Ga. — Color the Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition ruby red; the annual farm show is knocking on its fourth decade, but shows no signs of being over the hill.

The 40th edition of the Moultrie-based farm exposition kicks off today at Spence Field and will run through Thursday.

“It’s the 40th year of the Ag Expo, the 75th year of Spence Field,” said Expo Executive Director Chip Blalock.

Spence Field, whose runway will be busy with arriving and departing aircraft, started as a training base for foreign aviators training in the United States to fight in World War II.

Expo’s roots actually trace back to Tifton, where Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College began in the early 1960s hosting “Dealer Day” where students would meet with potential employers. Started by ABAC’s Ag Equipment Technology Club, it later became the “Farm Power and Recreation Expo” and when it outgrew the space available at the campus was moved to the nearby Rural Development Center.

When equipment dealers expressed interest in having a show where their wares could be demonstrated in the field, the club chose Spence Field, where it moved in 1978. The show later became a private entity, but the club continues to be a part of it.

So what’s kept tractor and other equipment dealers coming back?

“There’s always a need for a farm show like this in the Southeast,” Blalock said. “Being the show for the Southeast, we draw from a 10-state area.”

Expo has grown to incorporate much more than tractors, although those will be on display — from the very small to the truly monstrous like modern cotton pickers that also will be out in the 600-acre research farm fields, allowing farmers to check out their capabilities. Farmers can see some models for the first time as several companies are bringing newly released products.

The 100-acre show site, where some 1,200 companies, organizations and farm-related agencies will set up shop, contains an automotive section that includes Chevrolet, where attendees can test drive a new Colorado. Among the non-farm offerings are exhibitions in family living, backyard gardening, ATVs, antique tractors, lawn and garden, fish ponds, electricity, propane, hunting and fishing, to name a few.

Over the three days the exhibitors offer more than 300 different seminars and demonstrations, including beef cattle management, equine, goat and sheep health, fish pond management, the weird looking and woolly alpacas, dairy, poultry, electrical safety and more.

Visitors also can find a number of food booths inside the grounds, from Polish sausages to ice cream.

The secret to why people keep coming? That’s easy, Blalock said.

“We just continue to provide the environment for farmers and manufacturers and consumers to come together,” he said.

The amount of sales generated by the show is more difficult to pinpoint.

“It’s hard to quantify just how much business is done, because a lot of buying is done after the farm show when farmers go to their local dealers,” Blalock said.

The University of Georgia estimates Expo injects about $20 million per year into the local economy in the 20 county area. This includes hotel rooms, restaurants and gas stations. The study was done several years ago, so that economic impact likely is more than that now.

Another feature of Expo is the daily antique tractor parade at lunchtime.

Among those will be retired Doerun farmer James Fillyaw, with his restored Ford tractor that dates from around 1960.

Fillyaw’s tractor also will be displayed in the Georgia Ag Building, said Jack Spruill of the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

“It’s the main centerpiece,” Spruill said. “We try to have something a little bit different every year. We’re real pleased he was willing to let us use it.”