FMG NZ Young Farmer of the year Nigel Woodhead of Otago will contest the NZ Ploughing Championships at Thornbury, Southland in April. His invite to this came from NZ Ploughing Association (NZPA), the event organiser.
NZ Young Farmers Clubs (YFC) and NZPA have for years held local ploughing matches; some members have won NZ championships and represented NZ at the World Championships.
The idea of the link-up came as YFC member Hayden Allison -- an agricultural contractor from Milton -- and Graham Miller, a farmer from Mandeville, near Gore, got talking. NZPA were keen and Woodhead got his invite.
Woodhead says the challenge will make a change from the 400ha sheep and beef farm he and his wife Leanne run near Milton.
Competition runs in his family: his father contested the Young Farmer award and his father-in-law represented Zimbabwe at a World Ploughing Contest held in Outram in 1994.
The NZ Ploughing Championships is contested in four classes: vintage (pre-1957), horses, conventional and reversible. The NZPA owns conventional and a reversible ploughs for would-be contestants without access to ploughs.
At Thornbury, Woodhead will use the reversible plough with a New Holland tractor supplied by New Holland Agri Centre Southland. Miller and Allison (who is also competing) will use their skills and knowledge to coach Woodhead on the finer points of ploughing.
NZPA says competition ploughing has made a comeback especially in Canterbury and Otago/Southland: many young people are taking it up.
The championships will be held on April 14 and 15 at Rochaven, owned by the Hall family, and Nathan and Leigh Ronald’s property near the Thornbury township.
