Art4agriculture was conceived because I saw a number of gaps that needed filling and the first need was to put real farmer faces to the produce and give people real farmers they can relate.
Secondly their was a real need to put farmers back in the driving seat and give them a vehicle to tell their story their way.
I was finding more and more our industry messages where being delivered by marketing people who new nothing about the farms and the farmers they were promoting and this was leading to frightening outcomes. Just to give an example Dairy Farmers a very large farmer owned dairy cooperative released a very shiny expensive booklet called “Who we are and what we do” and all of the on farm images in the booklet where of a farmer with beef cattle.
It was no better at Dairy Australia. Six years ago according to the Dairy Australia marketing department Australian Milking Zebus were a major dairy breed in Australia and Jersey cows and Guernsey cows were the same thing. To make matters worse there was a breed of Australian bred cattle of significant numbers – Aussie Reds – that they had never heard of.
Thirdly Art4agriculture was conceived to give agriculture a strong voice through Next Gen. Pivotally our Next Gen Young Farming Champions actively acknowledge all primary industries share common and are breaking down the silos that have stagnated agriculture in this country for too long. They have a whole of industry long term collaborative vision and we are currently call for Expressions of interest for our third round of Young Farming Champions who will be trained to go out into their communities and sharing their farming stories to diverse audiences from school students to government ministers at every opportunity
Art4agriculture also recognise there are some phenomenal organisations and people doing wonderful things to selflessly promote rural and regional and remote Australian communities and their farmers. We have been approached by and now formed partnerships with some of these very exciting organisations and people to cross promote our joint vision and allow us all to punch above our weight for the common good of agriculture and the farmers who feed us.
Art4agriculture’s first partnership was with LandLearn NSW. At that time LandLearn NSW was coordinated by the amazing Carmen Perry from whom the fledgling Art4Agriculture team learnt so much. We are forever grateful Carmen.
Today LandLearn NSW is run by Carolyn Smith another dynamo with a smile to knock your socks off who is a true treasure to work with.
Art4agriculture is a proud supporting partner of the annual LandLearn NSW Speech Spectacular and what we love about this competition is its provides a clever vehicle for next gen urban to tell and share our farming stories and key messages for us.
Here is a great example. Grace Mahon is a year 5 student at Jamberoo Public School and this speech “The Environment is What we Eat” has found her a place in the finals on March 15th at Dubbo NSW
The overall winner (and for the last two years this has been a primary school student) is given the opportunity to be the guest speaker at the Cream of the Crop Awards and Presentation Day at Sydney Royal Easter Show each year
Last year the winner was Callum Hislop.
The first Speech Spectacular Winner Lachlan Hoyle deliver his speech at the Cream of Crop Awards and Presentation Day in 2010. Lachlan is introduced to the audience by MC Young Farming Champion Alison McIntosh
Check our some of the other 2012 finalist speeches here http://www.landlearnnsw.org.au/students/speech-spectacular/201112-finalists
Very impressive indeed. Australia’s farmers say #thankyouLandlearnNSW and #nextgenurban for helping spread the great story of Australian agriculture