On Saturday, 10th February, St Peter’s had five teams competing in the Otago - Southland Junior Young Farmer of the Year regional contest, and an additional team in the AgriKids contest. Our school values were on display as students competed with integrity and showed great community spirit helping the organisers pack down in the wind and rain. It is fantastic to see that three of our five Junior teams made it into the top ten out of eighteen, and our AgriKids team finished 5th out of thirty-one teams. We are especially proud of Robbie Sanson for getting Junior Competitor of the day. Here are some stories from the students:
In the Agrikids section of the Otago/Southland Young Farmers Competition we (Olivia Sanson, Verity Dynes, and Lucie Drummond) competed in seven modules. Some were physical challenges like building a gate, and some ones you had to think about like matching the right statements on the food chain, or knowing which plants are more or less flammable.
To qualify to move on we had to get into the top seven which is based on the points across all the modules. We made it to the top seven again this year so that meant we competed in the Race-Off final again.
Some of the things in the Race-Off were put the correct PPE on a scarecrow, climb under the camo net and collect the balls, then chuck the ball at a duck decoy, and build a box and attach it to the back of a go-kart and push each member of the team about 20 meters. There were also some questions about apple varieties and their descriptions as well as an activity about native plants. This is all timed and marked so you want to do it quickly but effectively. The top three teams go to the National Final which is in Hamilton this year.
Unfortunately, we did not make the top three this year, but we had a great time and want to thank Mrs Thomas and all of our supporters who helped us on the day.
- Olivia Sanson
On Saturday at the FMG Junior Young Farmer of the Year Competition in Mosgiel, my teammate Layne Talbot and I competed in six modules that tested our farming knowledge, fencing skills, and teamwork. Based on the scores from those modules we made the top five to move on to the final ‘Face-Off’.
The Face-Off was a quiz that consisted of several rounds which included quick buzzer rounds, a quickfire round, and one round of hard and easy questions. The questions were about a variety of different things such as “What is the colour of NZ’s National Fungi?” and “What is another name for bush sickness?” We did pretty well making it into the final for our first year competing as we were up against Year 12 and 13 students.
All up, we finished 4th and are stoked with that. Young Farmers is heaps of fun and I definitely recommend giving it a go. Thanks to Mrs Thomas for organising it, and to Poppa and Malcolm for all their help.
- Robbie Sanson
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