Dairy awards a real eye-opener

Regional pride was the theme of the Hawke's Bay/Wairarapa Dairy Industry Awards held in Masterton on Tuesday.

I ENJOYED the Hawke's Bay/Wairarapa Dairy Industry Awards on Tuesday night at the Masterton War Memorial Stadium.

If ever there was a sense of the industry feeling good about itself right now, it was there among over 400 guests plus finalists who packed the tables at the stadium.

People even got dressed up, as noted by convenor Will Bosch, matching the award theme of regional pride.

"Thanks for the excellent dress standard - we were told at conference we weren't the worst region, but we had to come up a bit," he said.

Speeches were what you'd expect from the rural industry: a bit of panic at the podium, a few "ah, yeah, bit of a shock, eh" and asking the wife if what he'd said was okay. The organisers did fail to intercept a voluble Featherston farmer who spent 20 minutes talking about growing up in Greytown and getting his motorbike licence.

But what impresses me is the relative youth of the entrants and winners. All three category winners are under 30.

It seems a far cry from my blinkered view that farmers are old, probably because I remember my great-uncle's dairy farm in Tokoroa, and his proclamations he'd "lose the farm" when things got stressful. To a child he seemed old. Yet he was a young man when he got started after the war. And coming from Wellington, the few farms that are over there are in the hands of old families.

I'd expected that dairy trainee of the year Alice Gysbertsen would be young, but her ambition to succeed shone through on the night. So too did the hopes of Equity/Sharemilker winners Tony and Sue Kuriger, Woodville, both Otago University science graduates who are back to the farming roots they grew up with. That was also a common thread - the role models that inspired these relatively young people to be enthusiastic and passionate about the industry.

But it's the ideas and the knowledge that really demonstrate how little I know about the farming world. The Kurigers lost me in the science of what they are doing to increase their production. Perhaps Mr Bosch put it best when he said "it isn't easy, but you know it pays off". Clearly young people are being inspired to enter this industry, with a record number of entrants for Dairy Trainee this time around. And I can't say I blame them.