Visitation to the 50th anniversary of Farm World at Lardner Park brought a smile to many faces.
Crowd numbers are not far off those in 2016 which was a record attendance last year.
Nicola Pero, CEO of Lardner Park, said: “This is very enthusing given last year was in the school holidays and the past year has been one of challenge for many in the agriculture sector.
“Our aim is to seek to schedule Farm World to always be in the school holidays in the future – of course this is impacted by Easter and many other major events.
“The weather had an impact on Thursday and Friday, however several farm machinery exhibitors noted the quality of buyers was strong during those days.
“Saturday and Sunday attendance certainly made up with weather almost perfect for walking the Farm World site over the weekend with many exhibitors celebrating great sales levels.
“2017 was a sell out for exhibitor sites and a number of exhibitors called into the office on Sunday evening to express satisfaction on their sales results.”
The Women in Agriculture Luncheon had an excellent attendance with 175 guests with sponsorship from Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank.
The guests thoroughly enjoyed sharing the personal journeys of the speakers Rebel Black and Emma Germano, with further insightful shares from Commonwealth Bank’s Nicole Brown speaking on Women in Focus, Natalie Collard sharing her perspective from the Telstra Business Women’s Awards, and Annette Houlahan from the McGrath Foundation.
Kevin Dale hosted the official luncheon with a trip down Farm World memory lane and a chat with a wide range of people involved over the year.
Attendances were impacted a little by the fact it was also sadly the final day of closure for Hazelwood coal plant with so many people from the Valley, politicians and media obviously being present in the Latrobe Valley to show their support.
The Farm World Equestrian Expo was very popular in its second year with maximum entries by competitors, Olympic level riders such as Russell Johnstone and Gavin Chester an Olympian himself as the course builder.
The Masterclasses were hugely popular and something we will be looking to expand on for next year. Mounted Games on Sunday was new with crowd engagement really positive and many non-equestrian people getting excited with the Sunday program.
The Gippsland Jersey Milk Off Challenge showed to be a huge hit with high patron interest, excellent media engagement, and people clamouring to be a milk off participant!
They put on a terrific presentation, enabling engagement with a lot of dairy farmers as well as imparting knowledge and information to non-dairy people about commercial dairy farming and its economic importance to the region.
Reflecting the theme of Food and Fibre 2017, the Food and Fibre Fiesta was tremendously well received with presenter demonstrations including pasta making, native bushfoods and composting being a hit and something we will continue to build on for next year, also reflecting the growth of the horticulture industry.
Nicola Pero said in conclusion: “Farm World would not be possible without the incredible support of the community groups that step up to assist with marshalling, ticket sales, ticket scanning, parking and so much more.
“The Lardner Park committee were in full force this year and we are thankful for all the hours that everyone puts in to ensure Farm World can be successfully hosted year on year.
“We’re very happy with the attendance – although like all events you always want more!
“Given this year was not in the school holidays and a slight dampening of spirits with the weather, we believe the changes in programming that were made this year were embraced by the public and we’ll be looking to expand upon these for next year.
“Farm World is during the school holidays in 2018 and we are confident of attracting a bumper crowd and delivering more new programming.”
