Making money from agriculture; local kids enjoy “the new mining”

Post-mining boom has witnessed renewed interest in agriculture as a vocation with a recent field day at Orange Anglican School enjoying a full-house.

The event welcomed students from a number of local schools entering a unique sheep-husbandry competition that has grown year-on-year.

The competition involves teams from each school having responsibility for the care, feeding, and health of about six sheep — all from one flock up to slaughter — with the final price raised by each mob going into a points table to determine the winning school.

”It’s to encourage kids to engage with agriculture and stemmed out of the NSW School Wether trials,” Program Coordinator Ben Watts said.

The competition is based on a fairly simple premise, those sheep that do the best, win the competition for that school.

“We’ve used a nucleus flock and each school has six sheep from that nucleus flock and it’s up to the school to manage and run them for six months,” Ben explained.

“In August, they all come back to Dubbo where every sheep is shorn, they’re slaughtered (over the hook), and then commercial values are applied to determine their scores.”

Regional schools involved in the field day other than Orange Anglican included Orange High School, Kinross Wolaroi, James Sheahan, Scots-All Saints at Bathurst, and Red Bend from Forbes.

Ben said that new technologies including computer modelling, drones for inspecting stock remotely, and satellite and aerial vegetation mapping, have brought agriculture into the new millennium.

 “It’s now a 21st century industry, if they wish to engage in it,” Ben said.

The competition is a product of the NSW Merino Stud Breeders Association — who provide the sheep to the schools — and the Australian Wool Innovation group.

“This competition has been exploding in the last two years, students are now learning about the global food and fibre shortage with some really good Australian subsets for growth of these industries,” Ben said.

Approximately 100 students attended the day which included presentations by a group of industry representatives ranging from wool classing, nutrition, regenerative agriculture, to drones and technology.

“This day is aimed at providing training, so the kids understand their responsibility to make money from them,” Ben added.

“I love agriculture, I live on a farm at Millthorpe,” one of the students said at the day.

“Schools that do well, want to sign-up each year,” Ben said. “It now involves 60 schools all the way from Ballarat to the Queensland border.”

“Looking to the future, agriculture is the new mining,” he concluded.