College farm takes out major awards

The Brisbane Water Secondary College farm has taken out major awards at agricultural shows achieving better results than all the other schools and producers competing.

The farm is located at the back of the Umina Campus and occupies about five hectares (12 acres) of land.

It has been operating for 15 years and relies on money raised through product sales as well as donations from supporting clubs and businesses.

Agriculture teacher and farm director, Mr Geoff Spence, said: "We are competing with big money schools and the farmers themselves and yet we still win."

The farm employs a full time assistant, Mr Ron Unsworth, who is also a cattle expert

This year the school has already competed in Maitland and Canberra.

In Maitland, the school won Junior Champion Female Limosin, Senior Champion Cow and Supreme Limosin Exhibit.

In Canberra, the school won Champion Limosin Heifer and Year 11 student Nathan Simenson won the Champion Parader trophy.

Nathan has left school and will go to Queensland in two weeks to work as a station hand.

The farm has 14 cattle at the school, mostly Limosin and Limosin cross cattle.

They are usually born and bred at the farm although this year, because of the drought, some producers that could not keep their animals donated them to the farm.

Such is the farm's reputation that five stud farms also have cattle based at the farm for the school to feed, train, prepare and present for showing.

The animals are looked after by the "cattle club" which currently has approximately 40 students.

Students compete to join the club and only those that are prepared to work hard and show aptitude stay..

The farm is currently saving for a truck to transport animals as it currently costs between $800 and $1200 to transport exhibits to a country show.

The farm has about 1100 students using it regularly with one subject unit in years 7 and 8 and electives in years 9 to 12.

Students from the Woy Woy campus are transported by bus.

As far as possible, each class tries to have its own patch to observe the hands on process of growing vegetables and other products.

While there are students and teachers on hand most of the time, the farm cannot be guarded all the time and problems are experienced with vandals, thieves and ducks.

When asked why the farm is able to do better than producers in its cattle program, Mr Spence said that there are three main factors.

"We attempt to source the best animals.

"We have more hands to look after the animals and they behave better as a result.

"We have a special diet that allows the animals to eat better and grow at the right rate," he said.

Cec Bucello, March 28