Judging young farmers

When the farmer learned the Young Farmer of the Year regional finals were to be held locally, he put my name forward as a judge of the Communication Module and offered to play the role of a farm worker who had no initiatve.

This was a novelty for both of us: my attempts at communication are endlessly judged by readers (hi there!), and he requires endless initiative to farm a thousand-plus acres.

On the day, two of us judged eight young hopefuls. When each contestant arrived, we introduced them to their three fake ‘employees’ who’d been briefed to use minimal intelligence.

The contestants’ first task was to ask their ‘employees’ - without speaking - to place several white sticks on the ground to create a letter of the alphabet. Think Charades. As farmers are famously laconic, I thought they’d all score highly but, after having been briefed, one contestant said to his ‘employees’, “Right, I’m going to get one of you to create the letter ‘C’ with those white sticks.” 

We let him start again with a new letter, but ‘the farmer’ insisted we judges had been too soft. Frankly, I think farmers need all the encouragement they can get to speak to their staff.

In Task Two, the contestants had to tell two employees to assemble some metal sheep yards, and in Task Three, the contestant provided written instructions to an employee who had to give a quad bike a prestart check then drive it through an obstacle course.  

Some observations: Only one contestant asked an employee to start Task Three while the others were still on Task Two. None said to their ‘staff’ something along the lines of: “Hi guys, we’ve got half an hour to do three things.  I’ve got to get my instructions before we start, so you'll be standing round for a while.” I can vouch for the fact that employees like that because the farmer never says it to me and on those occasions I always wish I’d brought a book.

It’s easy to be critical when you’re not in the firing line but for once it was my job, and I found it fascinating.

During the evening session, the contestants answered a raft of questions including this one: When was decimal currency introduced to New Zealand? Eight young farmers looked blank, then one brave contestant blurted some long lost year like 1876. Every Kiwi who’s 50-something or older knows it was 1967 and can still sing the jingle.

Whoever dreamed up that advertising campaign would score 100 percent in any Communication Module. But as the Government was behind the jingle that still haunts many of us, perhaps it belongs in a Brainwashing Module.