Food for thought at Kumeu Showgrounds

Food for thought at Kumeu Showgrounds

The inaugural Food and You Careers Experience Day took place at the Kumeu Showgrounds in Auckland on Friday 17th May. The event, designed for school students, proved a huge success as the fun-filled educational event gave students the opportunity to gain an insight to the food value chain. It also explored the vast array of career opportunities available in the primary sector.

Food and You is a new initiative within the Primary Industry Capability Alliance (PICA) implemented by New Zealand Young Farmers. “It was a golden opportunity to pull together a range of agricultural organisations and display the breadth of career opportunities available the industry” says New Zealand Young Farmers CEO Richard Fitzgerald. Mr Fitzgerald went onto say; “we are delighted with the response from urban secondary schools as we were able to engage with this market and showcase agriculture”.

The Food and You event was run alongside the ANZ Young Farmer Contest and there were nearly 500 school students, comprising of 19 secondary schools and three primary schools, from around Auckland and surrounding areas. All students were treated to a complementary lunch in the form of a gourmet burger sponsored by Siler Fern Farms.

Ben Allomes past President of New Zealand Young Farmers from 2006 – 2009 and current DairyNZ Board Member officially opened the event.

“This event, and others like it, will educate students that agriculture is not just about farming. They will learn that there is a whole industry built around it, and anyone can get hands-on and get involved in agriculture”, commented Mr Allomes.

Mr Allomes holds a degree in Applied Science, Natural Resource Management from Massey University and reached the Grand Final of the Young Farmer Contest (placing sixth in 2004 and second in 2006).

Industry friends designed interactive trade sites centred around the four themes of the day: Feeding the World, Food and Technology, The Market Place and Protecting our Future. The ten industries who partnered with the day included: TBfree New Zealand, Ministry of Primary Industries, Fonterra, CRV Ambreed, Alltech, FarmIQ, Silver Fern Farms, TruTest, Freashmax Group, Soljans Winery.

Incorporated within the day were two seminar sessions. Lead sponsor of the New Zealand Young Farmers Conference, TBfree New Zealand, ran a seminar to the theme of “Protecting Our Future”. Speaker Jeffery Benson, TBfree Regional Manager, who is also a current New Zealand Young Farmers member, spoke about the new methods for killing possums through the extensive research and eradication programme TBfree undertook.

Career Champions Angus Brown from The Food Bowl, share milker Cole Groves (also NZYF Board Member) and Rebecca Mitchell from Fonterra engaged students when they spoke about where they have come from and how they got to where they are today.

Food and You attendees were also able to catch this year’s crop of talented young farmers in action at the ANZ Young Farmer Contest and also AgriKidsNZ and TeenAg Grand Final Race-Offs.

The day was funded by some heavy weights in the agricultural industry; TBfree New Zealand, AGMARDT, DairyNZ, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, NZX Agri, ANZ, Lincoln, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms, Honda, Husquvarna and Vodafone. Other contributors included Massey University, Taratahi, AgResearch and PrITO.
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