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