Youth skills on show in finals

Teams of students and young people from Auckland to the Far North will converge on the Warkworth Showgrounds on show day for a series of adrenalin-charged agricultural challenges, as part of the 2019 NZ Young Farmer of the Year competition.

The northern regional finals of AgriKids NZ, Junior Young Farmer and the Young Farmer of the Year will all be held on the former equestrian fields at the rear of the site, with competitors completing a range of rural challenges compered by Te Radar.

AgriKidsNZ will see teams of three primary schoolchildren taking part in eight activities, such as assembling a beehive, sorting wool or go kart racing, and the top three teams will go through to the national final in Hawkes Bay in July.

The FMG Junior Farmer of the Year section will feature pairs of high school students having to work through eight modules, such as putting up a fence or building a chicken coop, before a quick fire quiz hosted by Te Radar. The top two teams will win a grand final place.

In the main event of the day, eight FMG Young Farmer of the Year contestants will go head to head in a diverse range of practical farming challenges designed to test their skills, knowledge and adaptability.

In previous years, these have included shearing a sheep, fitting a tyre to a quad bike, calibrating a tractor spray unit, putting in fenceposts and hanging a gate, and carving a gumboot out of a wooden log with a chainsaw.

The day’s field activities will be followed by a dinner and fast-paced agri-knowledge quiz, also hosted by Te Radar, at the Warkworth Town Hall.

This year’s finalists include three local contestants from the Kaipara Young Farmers Club – Daniel Richards, Jack Bellamy and Brody Goodmon – who came first, third and fourth respectively in the regional heats.

Daniel, 21, manages his parents’ 300-cow dairy farm in the hills of Tomarata and this will be his second regional final.

“I have more confidence this time around. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into back in 2017,” he says.

Brody Goodmon, 20, is a skilled fencer and stock driver who works on his family’s beef farm just west of Wellsford, while 18-year-old Jack lives on his parents 200-cow dairy farm off Cullen Road at Waipu and wants to be a diesel mechanic.

The winner of the Warkworth final will represent the northern region at the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final in Hawke’s Bay in July.