School students learn a lot about agriculture through competitions such as the livestock events at Sydney Royal Show.
This includes the steers, stud cattle and sheep, poultry, goat and pig competitions where they can get hands on, and get some guidance as they go.
In other words, Sydney Royal Show is their agriculture classroom for the 10 days the event runs.
Thats why cattle breeding, finishing and wholesale beef enterprise, Alexander Downs, has for the second consecutive year put its support behind The Lands schools competition, supplying a tonne of feed for the lucky winners as the sponsor.
During Sydney Royal Show, The Land put the call out for attending schools to enter photos that showed off the hard work, success and fun their school was having at the show.
From the entries, The Land has selected the best five, which will now be judged by our readers here.
Take a look at these five brilliant photos and pick your favourite and vote in the poll below.
Robert Gill, from Alexander Downs, Merriwa, said his familys company got behind the competition because the school students of today are the industrys future.
We try and support the schools as much as we can to encourage people to work on the land, he said.
Over the years weve taken great pride in the schools success and what theyve done.
Im 65 and when I was young we never had these sorts of opportunities.
The ag teachers are really switched on and they put a lot of work into it.
Mr Gill said the team at Alexander Downs was proud of having a very smart ration which they also used in their own business.
The Alexander Downs business grows its own cattle at Merriwa and these are finished on pasture with a supplementary ration, and sometimes in the companys feedlot, to be sold through its wholesale business, or to Woolworths.
Between the paddock (primarily) and the feedlot, the business finishes 300 head a week. The company also sponsors the Beef Bonanza and Merriwa Show feedlot trials.
Vote here:
What Mr Gill really liked about the steer events at Sydney Royal Show was the way the commercial reality of beef production was part of the event.
Sydney commercialises the whole aspect from a show and sale point of view, he said.
Weve got to teach young people that things have to be viable.
In the Alexander Downs feedlot, the cattle have to finish on 100 days or less (typically 94 days).
Mr Gill said this was an important reality in the Australian environment where the variable seasons meant supplementary feeding was needed to ensure the consistency of the end quality of the beef.
Voting will close at 5pm on Tuesday, April 24, and the winner will be announced in the April 26 issue of The Land.
