Don’t you just love it when industry celebrates young rising stars in agriculture
Recently Target 100 Beef Young Farming Champion Bronwyn Roberts had the honour of being invited to be the keynote speaker at the prestigious Marcus Oldham Rural Leadership Program and Australian Beef Industry Foundation Awards Dinner in June.
We at Art4Agriculuture are very proud of Bron who has committed her life to the red meat industry, as a farmer, land management officer and as an advocate for the sector.
Bron’s presentation was inspired by her Art4Agriculture blog ‘Shaped by yesterday and passionate about today’ which is a tribute to the impact her grandfather has had on her future
Bron has many talents it seems and poetry just happens to be one of them
To quell her nerves on the plane Bron penned this superb poem to her grandfather
This is my favourite verse
Dear Grandad
It’s been 20 years since you’ve been gone, Oh how the time’s flown by
So much has changed, so much is new, and there is so much to try
I wonder what you would think of me, youngest daughter of your youngest daughter
And if you’d want me in this field, following the path laid before her
I don’t tend garden, I don’t keep house, or take lunch to the men
I muster cattle, I build yards, make business decision and then….
I go to work to do what I love and help others to farm too
For this industry means as much to me as it did to you
So I’m here because of yesterday, shaped by those who came before me
But I’m passionate about today, and the tomorrow I can see
It’s been 20 years since you’ve been gone but I will not be sad
For I’m picking up where you left off
My dear Grandad
What’s yours?
Dear Grandad
It’s been so long since you’ve been gone; you’ve never seen our place
So much has changed, so much is new; old ways have been replaced
We use our agent to buy and sell, we rarely see a sale
We buy cattle over the internet, from photos on email
We work our cattle in steel yards, Mum’s iPad on her lap,
loaded with stock numbers, drench doses and our farm map
We weigh every animal and can predict the time of sale
Not afraid to change program halfway through or trading off the tail
No walk in dams, no traps yards, no horses and no workers
A trip to town and back again is not a rare occurrence
Having all our steers in one mob, all sizes big and small
And moving them from paddock to paddock so each year we spell them all
Dear Grandad
So much has changed since you’ve been gone; the world is not the same
We’re now perceived as vandals if we even pick up a chain
No more developing country or treating regrowth without permit
Yet if there’s coal under our farm they’ll turn it into a pit
There’s hidden cameras, propaganda and animal rights watching us
Our city cousins are demanding more but we’ve lost consumer trust
From your time as a young lad droving horses down Pitt Street
Jump to now and people think they don’t consume if they don’t eat meat
You proudly trained your horses for the men off fighting war
You sent them over on a boat, no protestors on the shore
Yet we send ships of animals to people who have less
And we are labelled murderers for trying to do our best
Dear Grandad
It’s been 20 years since you’ve been gone, Oh how the time’s flown by
So much has changed, so much is new, and there is so much to try
I wonder what you would think of me, youngest daughter of your youngest daughter
And if you’d want me in this field, following the path laid before her
I don’t tend garden, I don’t keep house, or take lunch to the men
I muster cattle, I build yards, make business decision and then….
I go to work to do what I love and help others to farm too
For this industry means as much to me as it did to you
So I’m here because of yesterday, shaped by those who came before me
But I’m passionate about today, and the tomorrow I can see
It’s been 20 years since you’ve been gone but I will not be sad
For I’m picking up where you left off
My dear Grandad
Bronwyn (Bron) Roberts – June 2013
You can find me on Facebook @ www.facebook.com/iamfarmerbron
And I also Tweet! Follow me @farmerbron
[…] in the footsteps of Young Farming Champion Bronwyn Roberts in 2013 Youth Voices Leadership Team member Anika Molesworth is the key note speaker tonight at […]