The world needs creative, innovative and courageous young people who can connect, collaborate and act. We know that youth may only be 20% of the population but they are 100% of the future. The time is now to let them share their dreams and design the future they want to see.
“When I hear about what these students are doing – I could not be prouder!
Having youth talk so passionately about climate change solutions for a sustainable agriculture sector makes my heart sing.
Sometimes I have to pinch myself that I am part of the Picture You in Agriculture programs which connect me in far western NSW to students 1,000 kms away so we can share ideas and stories. There are no other programs which make such an impact on the lives of young people – both rural and urban – like these ones, when it comes to farming and sustainability.”
Anika Molesworth Young Farming Champion, Australin Financial Reveiw 2019 100 Women of Influence, Young Australian of the Year Finalist
Students participating in The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas love getting visits from their Young Farming Champions but it’s not always possible for the two to meet physically. Enter technology. Using tools such as Zoom and Skype YFC Anika Molesworth recently took her climate change message to James Erskine Public School (JEPS) and Hurlstone Agricultural High School (HAHS).
Anika and the students from Hurlstone Agricultural High School
Students from JEPS were already on a sustainability trajectory before a giant white fibreglass koala landed on their doorstep. They have been involved in Clean Up Australia Day and National Tree Day, they maintain a vegetable garden, a sensory garden and a bee garden, and they recycle paper and cardboard weekly. They have begun collecting recyclable containers through Return and Earn and have used the credit to adopt a orangutan through WWF.
They are also using their Kreative Koala to focus on climate change and so Anika was a perfect fit to virtually zoom into the classroom. “Anika described life on her farm and how it is affected by climate change and the kids were like little sponges and asked some very relevant questions,” teacher Taryn Pears says. “The kids wanted to know what they could do and after listening to Anika they were saying things like ‘I’m going to waste less food’ and ‘I’m going to take shorter showers’. Anika targeted them very well.
“Personally, I was blown away by the number of young women in agriculture. I have some female students who I think would make outstanding agriculturists and Anika has definitely sparked their curiosity.” Taryn Pears Teacher Erskine Park Public School
Anika and the students from James Erskine Public School
Down the road from JEPS secondary students at HAHS are working on another masterpiece for The Archibull Prize as they study sustainability and biosecurity in the sheep and wool industry.
“We were able to get in touch with a Young Farming Champion, Anika Molesworth, via a Skype call, in which she discussed the effects of climate change on far western NSW and gave us insights on her view on how to tackle the issue as the young generation,” the students said in their Archie blog. “We could all definitely sense her strong passion towards her agricultural work as she educated our team with her amazing presentation on how we, as individuals, could make a difference to climate change with our social, political and consumer influence.”
Using modern platforms of communication Anika is having effective and inspiring conversations with both primary and secondary students – the next generation of young climate champions.
Check out this very clever call to action from the students at Hurlstone Agricultural High School
Hurlstone Agricultural High School entry in the animation section of The Archibull Prize 2019
The 2018 Archibull Prize has been run and won with Hurlstone Agricultural High School taking out the prestigious title of Grand Champion Archibull with an ornately decorated, sacred-cow themed Archie representing horticulture.
32 primary and secondary schools across New South Wales and Queensland took part in the ninth instalment of The Archibull Prize. Participants included public,independent and catholic schools, selective schools, alternate schools and performing and creative arts schools from rural and urban communities.
The students were joined by Young Farming Champions as they researched their nominated agricultural industry and presented their findings in blogs, infographics and multi-media, and by adorning their Archie – a life-sized fibreglass cow.
Thanks to support from the Aussie Farmers Foundation schools were able to study horticulture, for the first time and Hurlstone Agricultural High School created Brahman: The Sacred Cow as their Archie. “Brahman: The Sacred Cow is a visual investigation of the issues of sustainability and food security in the horticulture industry,” the school said. “Our artwork aligns the nourishment of the body with the nourishment of the soul…. and utilises the visual conventions of religion to celebrate horticulture, specifically, its capacity to sustain our world’s population.”
Reserve Grand Champion Archibull was awarded to Calvary Christian College – Carbrook Senior College, from Queensland who researched the egg and poultry industry to create Le-EGG-O, an Archie with elaborate LEGO figurines. “We went with this idea because LEGO, much like chickens and eggs, speaks a universal language,” the school said. “LEGO is internationally recognised and children from multiple nationalities will demonstrate recognition, be able to read booklets, construct, play, plan and dream. Likewise, poultry & eggs are an internationally recognised food source, with many countries having their own unique take on dishes cooked with chicken or eggs.”
The awards were presented at a ceremony held at Sydney Olympic Park on Tuesday 20th November, attended by dignitaries including CEO of Foodbank Brianna Casey and Youth Off The Streets founder Father Chris Riley.
Watch the winners animation here
You can find a list of all award winners in our Hall of Fame here
The Archibull Prize is a world renowned competition for Australian school students aged between 9 and 18 that uses the 21st century teaching methodology Project Based Learning (PBL).
PBL invites students to investigate and respond to a challenge, task or project and pursue deep real-world investigations where they:
Design real and complex projects for learning;
Think and create in digital and non-digital environments to develop unique and useful solutions by both adapting and improving on current designs as well as the innovation of new possibilities;
Think analytically and communicate using multi-media formats and engage in authentic assessment; and
Present their learning via exhibitions.
The Archibull Prize does this by combining Art, Computer Information Technologies and Agriculture.
Students are given a lifesize fibreglass cow, a farming industry, a young farming champion and the theme Feeding Clothing and Powering a Hungry Nation is a Shared Responsibility.
Their Archie artwork is just one of three major challenges the students have to complete to compete for Grand Champion
Thanks to Aussie Farmers Foundation schools were able to study Horticulture for the first time. Lets see what the student studying horticulture did with their Archies
First cab of the rank is Little Bay of Community Schools – who are four primary schools that feed into Matravillle Sports High School who mentor the students. Meet Veggie Patch
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Here is a little of the back story.
Our design offers a celebration of the innovative, creative and educational components of the horticultural industry.
The first side of our Archibull features a shipping container farm located in the middle of a busy city centre. This innovation provides a perfect answer to Australia’s continual growth of population and the big challenges of feeding a hungry nation. The shipping container farm is able to provide farmers an additional way to allow the nation to receive fresh, nutritious and local produce.
On the flip side of our Archibull, side 2 highlights the importance of biosecurity in the horticultural industry and the need to maintain high standards of policy.
We have also featured some renewable energy sources that farmers are now utilising on farms as a way of combating climate change.
As your eyes travel between the legs of the Archibull, we have designed a ‘Farm to table’ conveyor belt adorned with the transformation of a seedling into a lettuce. The felt sculptures have been inspired by artist Claes Oldenburg and his pop art soft sculptures. The conveyor belt celebrates the strong cycle of the ‘farm to table’ social movement. We are promoting our viewers to become part of the direct relationship between themselves and farmers.
The head of our Archibull truly celebrates all things green as he has transformed into an overgrown forest, the beauty of plants inspired this bright and eye-catching design. Additionally, the honeycomb patterns highlight the integral position bee’s play in the industry.
Lastly but not the least the back of our Archibull provides an educational, bright and fun message to our viewers, ‘Eat a rainbow’. Individually cut and glued onto the cow we have created a rainbow out of fruits and vegetables. This allows viewers a visual celebration of the importance of fruits and vegetables in our life. Read the full story here
Our second primary school is Calvary Christian School Carbrook Jnr Campus. Meet ‘Herb’ the Horticultural Cow
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And here is just a smidgen of Herb’s back story
Herb is designed to highlight the importance of eating fruits and vegetables as part of a balanced diet. Keeping healthy is a theme throughout the Year 5 cohort and we researched what the daily requirements are for a healthy person and identified many different fruits and vegetables.
Australia’s horticulture industry comprises fruit, vegetables, nuts, flowers, turf and nursery products. Many of the produce grown is seasonal and farms employ people in the picking season to help harvest the crops.
The different fruits and vegetables that we placed onto Herb, are designed to represent Australia’s horticulture industry. We placed Herb’s feet in pots and added ‘grass’ to highlight our growing theme. Fruits were added to the pots to represent the fruit that fall from the trees each season. Herb was painted green to signify the ground that provides the soil and nutrients for the plants to grow in.
The vine was added to signify a growing plant that spreads its leaves and vines in order to produce fruit, vegetables and new plants. This vine also represents the farmers of our community who spread their produce across our country to keep us all healthy. Without farmers in Australia we would have to purchase food from overseas, this would mean an even higher cost for food, a lack of job opportunities for a lot of people and we would not have as much control over the quality of the food we receive. Learn more about Herb here
Our next Archie comes from Hurlstone Agricultural High School. Meet Brahman: The Sacred Cow
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The full backstory of Brahman: The Sacred Cow can be found here . This is what the Hurlstone team said that makes her unique
Our Archie is unique due to the intricacy of design and of its cultural influences. It is more than what it seems on the surface, with each design detailing a story that flows along the body of the cow. Our vision is a strong celebration and honours the enterprise of Horticulture. The nourishment of the population and the fulfilment of health and wealth in our society is central to the piece. Our theme connects culture, religion, art and agriculture. It directly alludes to the multicultural population in our local community and recognises our responsibilities as global citizens.
The material practices employed in the installation Brahman: The Sacred Cow also emphasises the concept of abundance; every aspect from the patterns and symbols to the cornucopia express the wealth of food and the health and happiness it provides. The golden cart holding the beautiful collections and displays of the fruits and flowers further clarifies true beauty of horticulture.
Our artwork augments the true value of the cow by using gold as a symbol of wealth, luxury and decadence. This adds to the artwork’s unique qualities, as it contrasts strongly the traditional notions of a cow. The earthly connotations associated with horticulture and produce is effectively elevated to a spiritual level.
Our third primary school studying Horticulture was Gwynneville Public School. Meet DEM – E – TER the Greek Goddess of Agriculture.
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This is what the students had to say about their goddess
Our sculpture examines the many components of the Horticulture Industry and the significance of this industry to the Australian population in general. Horticulture represents “Everything that Grows” and comes from the Latin word “Hortus” meaning “garden”. This includes flowers, fruits and vegetables, grasses, nuts and spices.
On the front of our cow we have pictures of different fruits and vegetables, with raindrops and circles representing the importance of rain and sunshine to the growth of all plants. The leg at the front has a picture of a plant showing one of the processes in plant production – germination.
We have added bees to the bee-hind of our cow. The hive joins the front and the back of the cow showing a correlation between the flowers and fruit and vegetables. Bees are the backbone of food production as well as flower and plane reproduction and without these busy little workers pollination of our flowers wouldn’t occur.
The back of our cow has a floral design representing all flowers with grass on the back legs.
As a result of our Fresh Food Tour of a local supermarket we used the design of a re-usable bag of “Eat a Rainbow Every Day” to outline various fruits and vegetables and then sponge the colour on the cow.
The vibrant colours of the flowers emphasise how bees are attracted to them to pollinate. Read more about Dem-e-ter here
A truly stunning start. Watch this space to see what students have done with Wool, Cotton,Pork, Egg and Poultry, Sheep and Cattle and Grains
Today’s guest blog post comes from 2013 Dairy Young Farming Champion Cassie MacDonald. This young girl from the burbs has turned her talents into a winning formula to fight the good fight on behalf of dairy farmers everywhere
I wanted to show people everyone can make a difference by sharing their story
I wanted the message to reach as many people as it can.
I wanted to show that if you have an important story to tell people will listen
I hope consumers will stop and think about what exactly is happening.
I hope they think about the choices they make
I grew up in suburbia on the South Coast of NSW, born to a chef and a TAFE teacher/mechanic. We lived a typical ‘city’ life, small house, small backyard; no real exposure to agriculture.
My older brother and I in front of our family home in Albion Park Rail, early 1990s
Except for the odd trip to a family friend’s farm where I was too mesmerised by the Clydesdale horses to notice if anything else was going on. We rode our pushbikes until the street lights came on, and we were warned about stranger danger. We had one tree on our block. The closest thing I came to agriculture was gawking out the window on our many trips to see family in Bungendore. And still, the cattle were too far away to really see anything!
I developed a fascination with animals at a young age, especially livestock, however this was completely unlived. I was lucky enough to be given a pony at this stage- which was the closest chance I had of getting up close with a large four-legged animal. Except at ANZAC day parades where mum would threaten to leave me homeless (jokingly of course) if I didn’t leave the Lighthorsemen alone, after standing staring at them all day, when it was time to go home.
In 1999, a massive family move to the Snowy Mountains when I was ten saw the start of the the change in my life, most significantly moving closer to the opportunity to be exposed to agriculture. I still couldn’t quite get my hands on it, but we were a step closer, living on a 15 acre block, astride my trusty little Welsh Mountain Pony, staring at the neighbours Herefords over the fence. The galahs and cockatoos would entertain us at breakfast time, and I loved for the first time in my life not having next door neighbours breathing down your neck. I was hooked on that ‘country’ thing! The fresh air, the space, the freedom. Walking down the driveway took no more than 2 seconds to catch the school bus, and mum would let us play in the paddocks all afternoon after school. My longing to return to the place where we grew up was quickly forgotten and replaced with the knowledge that the country was where I wanted to call home. Although, changing from a school of 800 students to one of 300 certainly came as a shock!!
The final push came when I went off to boarding school at age eleven. After hearing about an agricultural high school when in year six, I decided I wanted to go there to learn about farming so I could become a vet. On my first day there I was eager to sign up to the Rural Youth Club and enrol in the calf rearing program. I got to look after my first show heifer, an Ayrshire named ‘Agapantha’. I spent months teaching her how to lead and tie up, spending all my spare hours on the school farm. From memory, some of the teachers were concerned that this behaviour was abnormal and antisocial. How wrong they were! If only they can see where this has got me to now.
Showing cattle at Sydney Royal ( me on the left) with Hurlstone Agricultural High School
At the end of that year I attended my first show, a calf show at the school- I was hooked! I didn’t miss a show from then on. I broke in a heifer, or two, every year and after learning the ropes, in my senior years I ran the group, organising young students, heifers and even the show teams.
Winning the Semex Youth Challenge at Sydney Show in 2011
Those six years of living on a farm alongside a great agricultural education and involvement in the Rural Youth club and the stud Ayrshire cattle team built the foundations for my love and commitment for rural Australian and our agricultural industries. I desperately wanted to become a veterinarian to continue my work with cattle, and ultimately agriculture.
Ayrshire calf day as an older teenager
After finishing high school I began studying Animal Science after being knocked back from entry into Veterinary Science. I started showing cattle for an Ayrshire stud (Mayfield Farms), and was mentored by my great ‘second family’, Paul and Vicki Timbs. They saw something in me and subsequently helped me every step of the way to gaining experience in the show scene, on the farm and in animal husbandry. These foundations have allowed me to come such a long way. In this time I also started working at the Working Dairy at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. After learning the ropes I graduated to Assistant Manager in 2008 and love every moment of educating the public about where our milk comes from, from looking after the health and wellbeing of the cattle to the harvesting, processing and marketing of milk and its products. Education is something I am extremely passionate about, as I believe we need to form partnerships with consumers so can work together to ensure agriculture has a bright and sustainable future.
Milking on the Timbs’ farm
Learning about calf husbandry at the Timbs’
Working hard at the Sydney Royal Easter Show Working Dairy
After a second knock back in 2007, I finally gained entry into Veterinary Science in 2008. I am now in my 5th year of my degree, and graduation just around the corner. I am a proud member of Ayrshire Australia, the ASC Youth Group, Wagga Wagga Show Society and the RAS of NSW. Representing Wagga in the Sydney Royal Showgirl competition finals in 2011 was a particularly proud moment. I am very happy to tell my friends that I earn my money milking cows (and I am happy to persuade them to have a go at it too!).
I am also very happy to stand up for the industry that I have become so passionate about. When I saw the Coles’ video “Our Coles Brand Milk Story”, I was infuriated with the way they had spun the truth and misrepresented the facts. I suppose any dairy farmer or dairy industry employee could tell you this too. I wanted to reply but knew that words, especially to Coles, would get me nowhere and would get to no one. I thought about it for a second- how can I reach the consumers and have an effect?
I decided to put a skill, that usually only made my school teachers angry for ruining my books, and my mother for using all the paper up in the house, to go use. So I put pen to paper, sitting on the living room floor, underneath my iPad balancing carefully on the edge of a chair. Fifty-two clips later I had completed all the drawings. Five hours worth of work over two afternoons. Two weeks later my video has attracted almost 16,000 hits on YouTube
“The response has been unbelievable, but it’s exactly what I wanted
I wanted to show people everyone can make a difference by sharing their story
I wanted the message to reach as many people as it can.
I wanted to show that if you have an important story to tell people will listen
I hope consumers will stop and think about what exactly is happening.
I hope they think about the choices they make if they buy supermarket brand milk, and how it affects others.
Ultimately it would be great if more people boycotted generic brands and bought branded milk products instead so we can really combat the problem.
I also want shoppers to think about the information they are being fed, especially by such big powerful companies.
As you can see I am extremely passionate about the dairy industry, its future and the opportunities it can give you. I am a walking talking example of the joy you can get from working in and the doors that it can open for you. I will continue to advocate for this wonderful industry that has made me who I am, so that other people can see the exciting opportunities out there. The dairy industry is full of amazing, talented and supportive people and I want to help make a difference to someone else’s life like the people I have met in the dairy industry have made to mine.
