Young Farmer of Year

Press, 11 May 1979, Page 10

Young Farmer of Year

Prizes for this year’s Skellerup Young Farmer of the Year contest have been increased to more than $25,000, with the winner earning prizes worth more than §22,000. In announcing these increases the marketing manager of Skellerup Industries, Ltd, Mr Ronald Collins, said that they were for the most important and successful contest of its kind in New Zealand.

The main part of the first prize is a new style Fiat 580 tractor fitted with a revolutionary PininFarina designed “supercomfort cab,” which is completely enclosed. The winner also earns a trip for two to the United States with §750 spending money. They fly by Air New Zealand to Los Angeles, spend five days at two of the world’s great hotels — at

the Hyatt Regency in Los Angeles and the Hyatt in San Francisco—and follow an educational itinerary specially prepared for them by the Los Angeles Department of Trade and Industry. The second prize is a Honda XLI2SS farm bike valued at $1758 and third and fourth placegetters each receive a SachsDolmar 119 chain saw valued at $438.

Entries last year for the contest exceeded 1000 and this year it is expected that there will be even more.

In association with the New Zealand Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs and Rural Radio, Skellerup Industries, Ltd, will conduct a series of eight contests, concluding with the national final in Hawke’s Bay on August 3. This

year there will be seven regional contests, with the number of Y.F.C. regional areas having been increased by one, and there is a change in the structure of the contest this year in that all regional winners will now qualify for the final, at which the principal guest will be the Governor-General, Sir Keith Holyoake. The regional final for the area from Christchurch northwards and including the West Coast will be held at Richmond, Nelson, on June 27.