Once a year, Brenton Kroehn’s property in South Australia’s Riverland becomes a bustle of rams, prospective buyers, auctioneers and high school students for the much-anticipated ram auction.
Key points:
- A Waikerie farmer has hosted students at his annual ram sale
- The Agricultural Teachers Association of SA says these experiences are crucial for young people’s learning
- Students say it helps them to better understand what their future careers could be
“This is it. All the work that we do, all the purchasing, all the breeding, all the marketing, it all comes down to today,” he said.
More than 100 merino rams are lined up, ready to make their way to flocks across the country.
Farmers mill around, inspect the density of the wool, the stance of the animal’s legs, check out the competition and decide on the perfect ram.
Among them are a dozen high school students.
“[We’ve] always been open to exposing farming to the community,” Mr Kroehn said.
“I think it’s experience more than anything … to give the opportunity to people that might not have seen it before.”
Mr Kroehn hopes by providing young people with a new experience, he can inspire a budding workforce.
“I mean the angle is always that it might create a spark in one student to want to pursue a career in agriculture, or strengthen that want they might already have,” he said.
Practical importance
Sue Pratt, South Australia’s lead agriculture teacher, said experiences such as Mr Kroehn’s annual ram sale were crucial to young people’s education.
“It’s one thing to talk about the theory … but to actually see it in action in an industry setting, is really valuable,” she said.
“Reading [about] it or research on the internet isn’t for everybody … I’ve seen it myself where students who aren’t particularly engaged in the classroom will bail up a stock agent and have a really long and detailed conversation.”
Beyond providing learning experiences, Ms Pratt said it could help to bolster an industry struggling with worker shortages.
“For students to see it in action and gain some understanding of what that career could look like, then it certainly is a terrific way of opening their eyes,” she said.
“We’ve got to do a lot more recruiting yet. We want to get a real diversity of people in agriculture, they can bring fresh perspectives and different skill sets.
“These excursions are a really important part of a program that can open student’s eyes to what agriculture can look like, that it’s more than just being a farmer.”
Classroom versus outdoors
For Natalia Hocking and Katie Oliver, who are students at Waikerie High School in South Australia’s Riverland, experiencing a real ram sale was an opportunity to develop the skills they learnt in the classroom.
“It’s a good opportunity to come out and visually assess the rams, on paper you can’t actually see what characteristics they hold so it’s been great to get out here and see them,” Natalia said.
“We’ve picked four of our best rams, but even some of our best that we picked in class aren’t our best now,” Katie added.
“It’s very different when you visually assess them.”
Fellow student Owen Kroehn said the day out was an opportunity to see if his future in agriculture would be in the paddocks, or behind a computer.
“What if we come out here and we decide we don’t really like what it is … and decide that we like something in the office?” he said.
“It’s good to come out and see what it’s really like.
“I feel like I would be more of an admin person, I’m not the biggest fan of the animals, but the numbers are fun.”
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