United Movement For Junior Farmers Suggested

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29900, 14 August 1962, Page 14

United Movement For Junior Farmers Suggested

Clubs tor young country folk would benefit by being run as a single movement, instead of the present New Zealand system of separation of the sexes into young farmers' and country girls’ clubs, according to Miss Margaret Simkin, a Western Australian land girl visting the Dominion on a Junior Farmers' Club exchange system.

Throughout • Australia, junior farmers, both men and women, belonged to the same clubs joined in a federation, making the movement

stronger as a whole. Miss Simkin said. Her own federation. for example, was self-governing, and had its own hostel and head office in Perth The head office, with four qualified persons in charge, controlled the district club’s work—their projects and agricultural and cultural activites.

Ninety-six clubs, five of which were high school groups, and a membership of 2500 members, comprised the Western Australian federation, Miss Simkin said. Miss Simkin, who is in New Zealand for three months, is the first Western Australian girl to come to the Dominion under the exchange for five years, although there has been an annual exchange of young men. At present staying at Methven, she has seen a good cross-section of New Zealand farming methods and has visited Massey and Lincoln Colleges. One valuable facet of the exchange system could be in talks to schools. Miss Simkin said. She will do a little of this in New Zealand, and on her return home hopes to speak to both junior farmers' clubs and school classes on what she has learned in the Dominion. Miss Simkin works on her father’s farm, with her three brothers, near Northampton.