Rural Olds College hosts world plowing event
Standing in a flat field divided between pale stubble and recently cut hay, Kerry Moynihan points to a long, white tent erected in the distance.
“We’re trying to turn that field into Disneyland,” he says. “Not quite Disneyland. It’s like rural Disneyland.”
In about a week, this field in Olds will be the site of a farmer’s Olympics; there will be a concession stand, bands, beer tents, parades, tractor pulls and a vintage tractor show. Already, competitors from the first of 58 countries have begun to trickle into Alberta. Soon, their devotees will follow, Moynihan says; they will leave flowers, pictures and flags at shrines to honour their country’s representative. At its peak, the event is expected to attract 5,000 people per day. All of them take this very, very seriously.
For the second time in its history rural Olds College will host the World Plowing Championship.
“There are two types of plowing, stubble and grassland,” says Moynihan, the general manager in charge of planning events in celebration of the rural trade school’s centennial. “They’ll spend one day competing on stubble and one day on grasslands. It took four years to grow that grass. We just cut the hay off it and now it’s ready for plowing.”
The hectares of field have been inscribed with a rich loamy scar; that will be the start, where the planet’s best plowmen will line up to prove their prowess on July 19 and 20. The contest is 60 years old and has been booked until 2027 with future sites including France, Denmark, England and Kenya.
Using tractors and blades, the competitors will show off the ancient art of cutting the top soil to prepare the ground for seeding.
“See the stakes out there,” asks Jim Sache, a dairy farmer from B.C. and the Canadian representative at the championship. Each tractor will line up with stakes hammered into the ground. The timed event will then grade the quality of the plow according to how straight it is, and on the evenness and height of the furrows. It must be perfect.
“The Canadians haven’t won this one since about 1953,” Sache admits. “We’re not so bad. We’re just not quite good enough to win. Everyone else is so good and the Irish, the Austrians and the Scots put a lot more money and time into this than we do. To them, it’s a job.”
Canada’s lead plowman actually drives trucks and runs cranes, Sache said.
“To him, this is a hobby. So it’s very difficult to compete with those guys.” Only patriotic pride is on the line; the competition doesn’t offer a cash prize. And plowmen themselves often have to put up large sums of money just to compete. Those who can afford to do so will ship their best tractors across the globe; the college lends tractors to those who cannot.
Malcolm Taylor, from New Zealand, spent about $10,000 to ship his equipment over. “I like to win. I came here to win,” he said. This is his third time competing in the world championship. he arrived early to fine tune his tractor and polish the plastic blades that turn the soil. Even the smallest flaw in the blade can quickly accumulate dirt, making for a messy furrow.
“I’d love to come here to win, but I’m finding this ground a bit difficult. It’s sticking to the boards. It’s very humus, too wet. That’s what it feels like to me,” he said. “What’s made it worse is that you’ve had such wet weather.”
Most of his plowing is now confined to organic farms. Many conventional farms have quit plowing in favour of practices such as no-till or direct seeding, the latter keeps the remnants of the previous year’s crop, a method less destructive to the soil.
However, Taylor said the shift makes farms more reliant on sprays to keep weeds at bay. In fact, plowing has all but ceased in Canada’s West, where the land is more sensitive to erosion and drought.
“It would be kind of a vintage sport in Canada,” said Mark Kaun, the organizing chairman of the championship. “But this is part of our heritage and this is part of the way the West was opened up and farming began.”
For Austrian Barbara Klaus, one of only two women to compete in the event, July 19 will represent the culmination of almost a decade of practice. “This always was her dream. She’s practised, she’s here and her dream has been fulfilled,” she said through her translator.
Her compatriot, Margareta Heigl, the other female competitor, said: “you need much concentration. The competition is for more than three hours and in just one second, if you’re not thinking, you can go off. you must have luck. you must have the right plot. Also, the handling must be OK. We think you can’t say who will be the winner. Everything is possible.”