Seven lucky grain farmers will be travelling to Sydney as the guests of GrainGrowers next week in an event celebrating National Agriculture Day.
The growers who live as far away as Badgingarra, two hours north of Perth, WA, and Springsure, south of Emerald in central Queensland will come together for the chance to learn more about what their end customers want from Australian wheat.
Grain Growers chief executive David McKeon said the winners offered a wide range of reasons in their competition entries for being keen to take part:
"These included wanting to: learn all aspects of the grain industry to be ready to take over the family farm; build new markets in value added products; know what millers want from hard wheat; look at vertical integration opportunities; and learn how to produce the functionality of wheat required by quality conscious consumers.
"We were delighted with the high standard of entries," said Mr McKeon. "It is clear that as business people, grain farmers are very focused on investigating the possible opportunities to improve their returns for the effort and investment they put into growing grain.
The winners are:
- Tim Hayes, V & HA Hayes Pty Ltd - Western Australia
- Sophie Bradley, Wool-A-Roo Pty Ltd - Queensland
- Patricia Schober, BS & PK Schober Enterprises - South Australia
- Chris Moloney, Moloney Agribusiness - South Australia
- Catherine and Matt Madden, Fairfield Farming - New South Wales
- Libby Dowling, Dowling Brothers Yarrawonga - New South Wales
The one-day workshop will be held at the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC) in North Ryde, Sydney. It will be followed by a dinner hosted by Grain Growers to give the growers a chance to network with Grain Growers and AEGIC wheat quality and market experts.