Catchment group leads cross-school field day

NOSLaM is a farmer group which says it is keen to improve water quality and promote good pastoral management.

Over 70 students made it to the bus tour of irrigation infrastructure and farming operations around the North Otago region.

The aim of the field trip was to get students out on farms, visiting a variety of land use types in the area and give students who are making career decisions an insight into the opportunities available within agriculture.

NOSLaM engagement officer, Nicola Neal says the event is a good way to demonstrate classroom learning and showcase future careers in farming while explaining how students can bet set themselves up for those roles.

“They also learned about the use of technology on farms and the impact of irrigation on the viability and production of those farms,” she says.

The day started with a visit to the main pump shed on the North Otago Irrigation Scheme which Neal says is one of the biggest in Australasia.

“This scheme delivers water to over 26,000ha of North Otago farmland, and has been a major contributor to agricultural growth and productivity so it was fantastic to include this link in the students’ learning,” she says.

Next stop was the Mitchell’s large arable farm with a high level of diversification including livestock grazing, commercial seed crops and alternative crops such as canary seed and sunflowers for the pet food market.

Neal says this provided students with an insight into the technology the Mitchells’ use, including GPS self-drive tractors and infrared variable rate nitrogen application cameras.

“The Mitchells are also associated with Topflite animal feeds and products, so they shared some insights into production, preparation and marketing of some of their products - a fabulous introduction for the students of a local vertically integrated business with a highly successful product range,” she says.

Students then visited the Webster’s dairy operation, where they discussed winter grazing, use of nitrogen catch crops and even had a taste of some fodder beet.

“They also had a look around the dairy shed and talked to staff about their roles on farm and how technology integration has changed, affected or enhanced these,” says Neal.

Local meat processing company BX Foods sponsored a BBQ lunch and introduced their local university graduates, one of which is a member of the NOSLaM steering committee.

Finally, students visited the McNaughton’s high country and downlands sheep and beef operation.

Grant McNaughton, a previous Young Farmer of the Year, shared his perspective with the students about future careers in the Agriculture sector, and how they could make the most of the opportunities on offer.

Neal says feedback from teachers on the field day has been ‘excellent’.

She says students and teachers will be able to reference the field day later in the year when learning about things like soil and irrigation in class and farmers have said they were happy to meet with classes again later in the year.

“All three schools were really engaged with the project and we look forward to helping to bring them all together in the field again regularly. As a catchment group, we hope to be able to support all of these schools to enhance and give local context to the curriculum for Agriculture.”