Young passionate ‘Ag Ambassadors” use social media to spread the good news stories about modern Australian farming

practices The winners of the 2010 Cream of the Crop Competition were presented with their awards and prizes donated by Woolworths on April 14th at the 2011 Sydney Royal Easter Show The Cream of the Crop Competition is an Art4Agriculture initiative that invites students to explore agriculture and natural resource management concepts through the visual arts. High school and university students were asked to promote their studies to their peer group in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. This forces them to think strategically about how to convey their messages to other students in a concise and visually appealing way This year’s finalists’ presentations covered topics as diverse as goat farming, climate change, robotic dairying, sustainable farming, alpacas and the Locavore movement. Out of these diverse topics, a common theme has emerged around the importance

of studying agriculture to provide food and fibre in a sustainable way.

Many of the presentations touched on the idea that today’s students:

will be responsible for the future sustainable use of Australia’s landscape,

that climate change will impact on how we farm; and

That balance is needed to ensure we don’t negatively impact on the natural envi-ronment.

This year’s rising stars included the following students from Hurlstone Agricultural High School – Vardhman Jain, Jordan Kerr, Monica Waters Neil, Anna Tran, Helena Lim, Isabella Molineaux and Africa Vernon, Cranebrook High School was represented by Amber O’Neil, Yanco Agricultural High School by Clare Bolam, Sydney Girls High School by Claire Liang, Caroline Chisholm College by Chantelle Rushton and Dustin and Brandon Gaddes who are home schooled Details of the 2011 competition will shortly be loaded here http://www.dairyyouthaustralia.com.au/creamofthecrop/index.html The 2011 finalist’s presentations can be found here http://www.dairyyouthaustralia.com.au/creamofthecrop/2010Finalists.html Picture L to R Monica Waters Neil, Anna Tran, Amber O’Neill, Claire Liang, Vardhman Jain, Dustin and Brandon Gaddes, Jordan Kerr and Chantelle Rushton.