The No 8 Wire: Gearing up for awards

Laster's Silver Fern Farm, Hawke's Bay Farmer of the Year winners Sally and Grant Charteris. The job's now on to decide who will be named this year's winners at the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds on April 6.

Things are starting to happen heading towards the Napier Port Hawke's Bay Primary Sector Awards next month.

Hawke's Bay A and P general manager Brent Linn says entries in the centre-piece Silver Fern Farms Farmer of the Year contest are being finalised this week.

Winners of the array of awards will be named at the annual gala dinner at Showgrounds Hawke's Bay on April 6, and Mr Linn says: "They are the region's largest celebration of the strength, diversity and leadership present in its primary sector."

The greatest interest is in the Farmer of the Year contest and Mr Linn says entrants will have had to demonstrate astute management given the roller coaster year climatically and market wise.

All up five other awards are also at stake, including the Pan Pac Hawke's Bay Farm Forester of the Year.

Younger farmer

Also next month is the national Young Farmer of the Year East Coast Regional Final.
There are eight finalists for the showdown at the Waipukurau Racecourse on April 1, battling for a place at the national grand final in Manawatu on July 6-8.

The eight East Coast finalists, from a series of district competitions, are Hawke's Bay representatives Hugh Abbiss, Ben Thomas, and Hamish Best, Tararua's Liam Kelly, Daniel Tarbottom and Patrick Crawshaw, and Wairarapa hopes Richard Cameron and Henry Reynolds.

Shear dip

The 57th Golden Shears are in Masterton today with some concern about a dip in entry numbers which could reflect several issues in the sheep and wool industry.

But Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman and shearing legend Sir David Fagan says that even about to attend the Golden Shears for a 42nd year in a row it still has its charm.

He said this week "the cream still rises to the top", and once elimination rounds are out of the way there will be just as much hype about the glamour events as ever.

More than 20 events are included, with Golden Shears titles in five shearing classes, for woolhandling classes and three pressing events, along with Transtasman shearing and woolhandling tests, and the country's major multi-breeds event, the PGG Wrightson National.

More than 3500 sheep will go through Masterton's War Memorial Stadium, where the Golden Shears have been held every year since the event's inception in 1961. They're mainly romney ewes, but include about 200 finewool merino wethers, and small numbers of corriedales and lambs.

Just flyin'

Primary Wool Co-op members are being offered the opportunity to win an all-expenses paid trip for two to the Just Shorn North American re-launch in May. PWC members get a head start because of their investment in the co-operative.