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New Zealand Agriculture Show president and successful show jumping competitor Chris Harris.
This year's New Zealand Agricultural Show in Canterbury will go ahead, vows show president Chris Harris.
“Come hell or high water we’re having it,” he says.
The show, scheduled for November 9, 10 and 11, will be the first full Canterbury show in three years following two cancellations forced by the Covid pandemic.
The association traditionally appoints a new president for each annual show but for Harris, originally named as president for 2020, it will be third time lucky.
Harris believes A&P shows are important social events for farmers.
“They can look at new innovations and things like that, but they’re also going to catch up with farmers they don’t see for the rest of the year.
“Everyone’s dying to get back.”
Harris notes that some equestrian and a few other events did go ahead during Covid – albeit usually without spectators – but sheep, cattle and other stock exhibitors mostly missed out.
For them, the show is an important commercial opportunity, he says.
“Sheep and cattle really use it to promote their breed.”
The Canterbury show is traditionally the country’s largest show, hosted as it is by the country’s largest and oldest A&P association.
After the two-year hiatus, Harris expects this show to be as big as any.
Entries are “stacking up as they always have done,” he says.
“Everything’s back, that should be back. Now we just need the crowd and some good weather.
“I’ve had three years of nightmares with Covid and everything else. My biggest worry now is the weather.”
A successful show jumping competitor who has represented New Zealand internationally, Harris has trained a string of show jumpers and gallopers from his 10-acre farmlet near West Melton.
Show jumping has been “my whole life’” he says.
“This will be the first time since I can’t remember that I won’t be competing at the show, because I’ll be too busy with the presidential duties and everything else.”
A major innovation this year is free entry for children under 18. Three free child entries will be available for each adult or senior ticket sold.
The scheme has been made possible by a grant from the Kiwi Gaming Foundation.
Also new is support from Vero Insurance, which has come on board as the naming rights sponsor.
A million-dollar loan from the Canterbury promotional organisation Christchurch NZ was also vital.
Harris says they have gone from “treading water all the time like most A&Ps” to having a debt.
“But if we didn’t get that we wouldn’t have been able to exist.”
Former show president Richard Lemon says the whole Show Week, with the trotting and galloping cups and the three days of the show itself, is important for Canterbury.
“We have missed the public. We have missed our trade people here because that’s really what brings the people to the show, and the competitions and that type of thing. It’s the bringing together of the whole family and participants that makes the show what it is.
“It’s our week to shine, I believe.”
Lemon is from a fivegeneration family farm at Winchmore near Ashburton – formerly sheep, beef and cropping but now milking 1,100 cows. A long-time veteran of the A&P show circuit, he rode ponies as a child, used to show stud sheep, and is also involved with the Ashburton show.
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