Putaruru trio excel at Agrikids

A bright future in dairy farming looks set for three Putaruru youths after their impressive effort at the national Agrikids Grand Final in Timaru.

The Checkered Calvers’ Luke Farrell,13 Alex Fladgate,12, and Edmund White, 13, were the runners up at the hotly contested competition which featured 21 teams from throughout the country.

After placing first at the regional competition earlier this year the trio represented the Waikato and had to complete various agricultural based modules, farming exercises, first aid, and other interesting challenges over four days.

Edmund said the biggest challenge was having to judge sheep.

‘‘We all come from dairy backgrounds so before we went down we went to a local guy who taught us how to judge sheep. We don’t really know anything about sheep so it was hard and apparently we didn’t get many right,’’ he laughed.

He said they were happy with there overall performance but had mixed feelings about coming runners up.

‘‘We were excited but a bit gutted because we were so close to coming first,’’ he said.

‘‘Our parents were really happy, they were astounded and thought we we joking,’’ Alex said.

Luke said they enjoyed taking part in a parade beforehand.

‘‘People really liked our costume which were black and red Swanndri and we went up the street with a big banner which had half painted in Waikato colours and the other half in checkers with our name on it,’’ he said.

‘‘Everyone was so nice and said hi to you because they knew what you were doing so it was pretty fun,’’ Edmund said.

The Checkered calves said they had to put in a lot of work for the competition and were glad it paid off.

‘‘We had to study before we went and it took a lot of weekends,’’ Alex said.

‘‘We all have rugby and stuff so it was hard to fit it all in,’’ Edmund said.

They said they’d like to do something with agriculture long term and thanked their sponsors Farmlands, Swanndri, Farm Source and the Waikato Bay of Plenty Farming Club for allowing them to take part in the competition.

‘‘We are very appreciative of the help ,’’ Alex said.

The advisor can also point business owners towards free access to government funding programmes and Business Mentors New Zealand.

The service operates on the first Thursday of every month and is based at the council office in Tokoroa.

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Chief executive Craig Hobbs said the council prides itself on the recent successes in economic growth delivered through initiatives such as this.

‘‘The initiative aligns with the council’s strategic goal of growing our economy and creating more jobs for our local people.’’