Agriculture Investment - Public School Grows $50k in Wheat

[Hydrogen]

When the students at Hermidale Public School in western New South Wales planted 85 hectares of wheat at the beginning of the year, harvest seemed a lifetime away.

The children dreamed of raising enough money to fund an excursion to the beach, but never thought they'd make enough money to send the whole school around the country.

"We can't believe what we have been able to pull off," teacher Rebekah Coddington said.

Seven students from kindergarten to Year 6 attend Hermidale Public School, more than 600 kilometres west of Sydney.

The town had endured an anxious few weeks as flooding has engulfed much of western NSW, but Hermidale was spared the worst and this week the headers rolled out for the harvest.

Local farmers gave up time and machinery to strip the kids' crop.

"We didn't get bogged once, which was really great," local farmer and parent Darren Mudford said.

Ms Coddington said the children had "been given the opportunity of a lifetime".

"Every member of our small community has contributed in some way, whether it be small or large, and it's been amazing to see it come together and to finally get the crop off," she said.

Unique learning experience

For most of the year, students swapped their school uniforms for work shirts and boots to tend to the paddock.

The land was donated by a former student and while the students weren't able to be operating the machines, they watched on as their hard work paid off.

"It was so exciting to get to come down and see the headers in the paddock and learn how they work and then watch our grain go off in the trucks," Year 6 student Ruby Mudford said.

The students were then able to visit the grain depot to see their grain being tested, graded and weighed.

Hard work pays off

The students' wheat crop is expected to raise up to $50,000.

About 170 tonnes of prime hard wheat was taken to the local grain depot where it will be stored before it is sold.

Former student Elly Jeffery just happened to be working at the local grain depot when the students' crop came in.

"It's very high in protein, the protein went 13.9 and the grade of wheat went H2, which is a really good grade of wheat," she said.

About 1,700 loaves of bread can be made from 1 tonne of wheat, meaning the students at Hermidale Public School have effectively provided enough grain to make 290,000 loaves of bread.

"We can't believe the tonnage," Ms Coddington said.

Funds from the wheat sale will be given to the school's P&C for its educational, social and cultural immersion project, which sends students on excursions around the country.

The school hopes to travel to Newcastle early in the new year to see their wheat being loaded onto a ship at the port.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-27/nsw-hermidale-public-school-wheat-crop-sale-to-fund-excursions/101688622

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Farming land was donated by a school alumnus, local farmers volunteered to provide equipment and the local community contributed towards helping school children grow 170 tons of wheat valued at around $50,000 to fund future excursions around the country. Aside from financial gain, this type of vocational program could also provide valuable learning and life experience for youth.

Australia isn't the first to attempt this type of program. Brazil had incorporated communal gardens in city regions to create jobs and produce food locally, making regions less dependent upon foreign food imports.

If there are future food shortages and food production becomes deflationary in nature off global production declining. Perhaps this could become a more common trend for many nations of the world who previously relied heavily upon food imports.

States and governments hold large quantities of land in trust which could be donated to these types of programs to produce higher quantities of food in emergencies. Local farmers might also be incentivized to provide equipment and manpower on an incentive basis.

[Frankolala]

Agriculture is a very important aspect in human life and I love the cooperation of the Ex students,local farmers and the community people who helped these school children to achieve their dream on going for an excursion by raising funds from Agriculture.

It was a good harvest since they will have more than enough for more excursions as this will help them in learning well, it will also encourage them to put in some of their time into agriculture when they are grown up. In my country importation of foods is high and that is why inflation is hitting our economy seriously because there are small people into farming and importation devalues our currency.

Presently,base on the inflation people are now going back to farming because they see it as a means of survival and making profit. There is so much money in farming but people have neglect this and are looking for office jobs everywhere, farming can be used to boost up the economy of a country.

[gantez]

The children dreamed of raising enough money to fund an excursion to the beach, but never thought they'd make enough money to send the whole school around the country.

"We can't believe what we have been able to pull off," teacher Rebekah Coddington said.

This kind of statement can be eye opening to government if they want to grow the economy. Agriculture is still very important to the economy sustain. If student that have little equipment turn small agriculture into big resources to taking care of other schools, you now see it have big benefit to the economy if government can invest into it and food scarcity can reduce. The student planted few but with commercial farming, the benefit will come from more crops.

[Zaguru12]

Should we say the recent events of people turning back to agriculture and farming due to lingering or the anticipated recession. I have seen government initiatives of recent trying to help farmers with incentives for farming particularly the irregational wheat farming. Also schools are not left out because I could testify that most universities here in Nigeria are given students of Agricultural related courses Farm lands from the large hectares of the school's. Other students could even pay as low as 2,000 naira ($170) to get 1 hectare. This has help some students from average homes carter for there needs and sometimes pay tuition fees.

Outside school environment, business people this days are known to be buying agriculture produce for hoarding. Before this was bad for the economy because of the lack of large produce. But with the large number of produce even during winter period through irregation hoarders cannot increase the fee anyhow.

The question now is are people turning towards agriculture because of the issues in energy/gas or because of the last recession experience??

[Genemind]

The children dreamed of raising enough money to fund an excursion to the beach, but never thought they'd make enough money to send the whole school around the country.

"We can't believe what we have been able to pull off," teacher Rebekah Coddington said.

This kind of statement can be eye opening to government if they want to grow the economy. Agriculture is still very important to the economy sustain. If student that have little equipment turn small agriculture into big resources to taking care of other schools, you now see it have big benefit to the economy if government can invest into it and food scarcity can reduce. The student planted few but with commercial farming, the benefit will come from more crops.

Indeed agriculture is one of the biggest aspects of the economy. It's just sad that our government is not that supportive of agricultural sectors, instead of supporting local farmers they buy their lands to create subdivisions, export agricultural products, and let farmers sell their crops for a lesser price. This is also one of the reasons why fruits and vegetables are really expensive nowadays. May this be an eye-opener, if the agricultural sector is supported well by the government it can help sustain the economy.

[Flexystar]

Or else they could actually start giving education to the students who wants to learn agriculture and advance methodology behind it. There is huge market in the GMO, modern techniques calling for high quality seed germination by applying scientific knowledge and ongoing research.

In America most of the people are trying to be in the race of white collar jobs. However, nobody wants to keep doing agriculture due to status symbol or whatever thinking they might have behind it.

However, if they try to enforce more and more agriculture associated education and ask families to attend more farming then it could change the entire scenario explained above.

[el kaka22]

I cannot say that I buy the story. The land was given, the machinery was given, and probably the initial capital to buy the wheat seeds and even watering it must have been covered and on top of that, do we really believe kids ranging between kindergarden to year 6 ended up driving those tractors? Of course not.

So, what we have is bunch of kids doing maybe just a bit of manual labour, like carrying some hay or something here and there, but 90%+ of the job was done by others and the capital required was paid by others, so the kids made 50k in profit thanks to that. If it was a real farmer, all that extra 50k would have gone to machinery and land and seeds etc etc.

[odunybiz]

Nothing life agricultural investment. This is highly profitable and also provide food for the nation.

[Iroh]

I think this is a good initiative and the kids would have learnt a valuable lesson on this project.
I can only imagine the pride in the student seeing their hard work pay off. This would also further impact on the students the urgent need for food sustainability. Hopefully, the project would have left an impact on the young students and from there, we would have future farmers that would delve fully into agriculture. And it has shown that it could also be very lucrative as well.

[livingfree]

They're doing the right thing, since it's known that there's a food shortage and it's with different ingredients and food. Planting must be done to sustain specific locale areas to at least mitigate the possible food shortage impact.

I think if most communities are like this and helping each other, from equipment to knowledge about planting and there's the initiative from the different sectors concerned to planting and production of food.

Those localities and communities will not experience or at least will have minimal impact from the global food shortage.

[Die_empty]

States and governments hold large quantities of land in trust which could be donated to these types of programs to produce higher quantities of food in emergencies. Local farmers might also be incentivized to provide equipment and manpower on an incentive basis.

My country is suffering today because we abandoned agriculture because crude was discovered. Most farmers in the rural areas have emigrated to urban areas because they want to work in the oil and gas sector. Many major farms have closed down because the government is now focusing on the oil and gas sector, while they abandon the vital agricultural sector.  Currently we are now relying mostly on other countries for food which has led to unfavorable balance of payment and overdependence on the dollars. A rich country is the one that has the ability to produce the food the country consumes.

This program is a very good initiative. It would not only inculcate agricultural skills in the students but it can boast food production. Such program in my country can reduce crime because most unemployed youth have now embraced crime. But if government can use massive uncultivated lands to start up program like this, most youths would become gainfully employed.   

[Plaguedeath]

Agriculture investment is quite hard to create, it doesn't like we only need land, seed and water to create it, but the other thing like fertilizer, nutrients, weather is really important. Also there's several risk like bacteria, bug, virus, stranger steal your plant or fruit etc, that's make agriculture investment isn't easy. Although agriculture wouldn't die, but to run it you need a large yard and a complete team to do that.

[STT]

One bad hailstorm and the whole lot could be lost, farming isnt easy but I can believe its good profits when it all goes right including the market.  Wheat is being burned in conflicted countries and of course weather the eternal dice roll is never going to be perfect every year but nice they got such a good result.  If it were a business they would have to invest the money made in good times to cover the absolute losses also possible.

[Iroh]

Agriculture investment is quite hard to create, it doesn't like we only need land, seed and water to create it, but the other thing like fertilizer, nutrients, weather is really important. Also there's several risk like bacteria, bug, virus, stranger steal your plant or fruit etc, that's make agriculture investment isn't easy. Although agriculture wouldn't die, but to run it you need a large yard and a complete team to do that.

Generally, investments need rigorous planning and investments in the agricultural sector is no different.
When going into investments, there are some risks you would just have to come across and that’s why planning and some research is important.

With agriculture, there are various pesticides used in destroying harmful bugs and other things harmful to the plants. The only setback I see to agricultural investments is the weather which exactly can’t be controlled by man.

[DrBeer]

Now I will add "a fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey"
Let me explain a little how the agricultural market works in many countries. There is a state, there are mega-agricultural holdings, there are large/medium-sized agro-holdings, and there are private farmers. The nuance is that even in today's situation, when there is a crisis and a shortage of grain due to the terrorist war unleashed by Russia, you, being a private farmer or a medium-sized agricultural holding, CANNOT sell grain at a market price .... Seriously. Firstly, you most likely will not be able to sign direct supply contracts. The reasons ? No, not even "spokes in the wheel" from major players. The final buyer is the same large companies or even the state. And from the supplier they need: commitments for volumes of supplies, all kinds of conclusions on compliance with state standards, mandatory analysis of grain before shipment, compliance with the fertilizers used, and so on and so forth. Which is extremely expensive for a private farmer, and sometimes not feasible.
Therefore, the path of your grain will be like this:
you, having invested maximum effort -> local traders who will buy no higher than they accepted from themselves. Especially without investing and without straining. If you don’t want to sell at their price, well, keep it, feed the mice with grain, but tomorrow the price will be even lower -> large exporters / state that bear the smallest costs, but make a noticeable markup

[stompix]

Oh god, we need an Agriculture board.

Title of the article and topic:

Agriculture Investment - Public School Grows $50k in Wheat
Hermidale Public School's first wheat crop to sell for $50,000, fund excursions

Tiny details in the topic:

The land was donated by a former student and while the students weren't able to be operating the machines, they watched on as their hard work paid off.
Local farmers gave up time and machinery to strip the kids' crop.

So let's recap:
- School gets free land
- Local farmers work their asses on it for free, use their own machines with no charge, pay for gasoline and other out of their own pocket
- Students watch the tractors from the side

So, if the guy wouldn't have donated the land and just worked himself there with the other's help and would have just donated the revenue to the school it would have been the same, the school didn't do anything, the students didn't either, they didn't have the resources in the first place to.

In America most of the people are trying to be in the race of white collar jobs. However, nobody wants to keep doing agriculture due to status symbol or whatever thinking they might have behind it.

And despite that, miraculously the US is the largest food exporter in the world.
So let me rephrase this for you so that it's far more accurate when typing on the internet everyone says how good agriculture is, how it must be encouraged, and so on and on, when it comes to actually quit your white-collar jobs and starting to live from it, crickets!

Now I will add "a fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey"
Let me explain a little how the agricultural market works in many countries. There is a state, there are mega-agricultural holdings, there are large/medium-sized agro-holdings, and there are private farmers. The nuance is that even in today's situation, when there is a crisis and a shortage of grain due to the terrorist war unleashed by Russia, you, being a private farmer or a medium-sized agricultural holding, CANNOT sell grain at a market price .... Seriously. Firstly, you most likely will not be able to sign direct supply contracts. The reasons ? No, not even "spokes in the wheel" from major players. The final buyer is the same large companies or even the state. And from the supplier they need: commitments for volumes of supplies, all kinds of conclusions on compliance with state standards, mandatory analysis of grain before shipment, compliance with the fertilizers used, and so on and so forth. Which is extremely expensive for a private farmer, and sometimes not feasible.

You paint a too bleak picture for it.
You decide what you want to grow, you take care of your land and harvest, you either ally with local farmers and build storage facilities or you decide to manage it on your own, then you look at local traders and major hubs that list the price according to quality you decide to which you want to sell. Second, compliance with pesticides, seeds, humidity, and protein, will always be on the farmer's side, nobody will buy from you without all these papers unless it plans to directly use it and doesn't care, no real shipping company, and no trader will accept it with no papers.

Second, nobody can sell at market price!
Because the market price is for future deliveries in the port of choice, if you have a future contract of $300/t for shipment in a port, with delivery for the other side of the continent that's all up to you, the buyer buys x tons shipped to Alger on xx/xxx/20xx from Rotterdam, all that transport cost will be yours to bare. Plus, when it comes to transport, there is no single farmer that is able to move all its grain to the nearest port alone, just no, if you have 10-20 ha, that's already 4 fully loaded 55cm trucks, nobody is going to wait for you to make 4 trips back and forth, take 4 samples, do the papers for each load, and so on.

[Kakmakr]

Projects like this can be done in an urban setting too, because I have seen many "rooftop" gardens in urban projects. We underestimate the potential of large schools and what can be done, if they only use some innovation.

My friends children is in a school, where they generate solar power for their whole school.... they also have water catchment and purification systems that provides for almost 80% of their water needs. (This saving on utilities and services are reducing their school fees) 

[DrBeer]

You paint a too bleak picture for it.
You decide what you want to grow, you take care of your land and harvest, you either ally with local farmers and build storage facilities or you decide to manage it on your own, then you look at local traders and major hubs that list the price according to quality you decide to which you want to sell. Second, compliance with pesticides, seeds, humidity, and protein, will always be on the farmer's side, nobody will buy from you without all these papers unless it plans to directly use it and doesn't care, no real shipping company, and no trader will accept it with no papers.

Second, nobody can sell at market price!
Because the market price is for future deliveries in the port of choice, if you have a future contract of $300/t for shipment in a port, with delivery for the other side of the continent that's all up to you, the buyer buys x tons shipped to Alger on xx/xxx/20xx from Rotterdam, all that transport cost will be yours to bare. Plus, when it comes to transport, there is no single farmer that is able to move all its grain to the nearest port alone, just no, if you have 10-20 ha, that's already 4 fully loaded 55cm trucks, nobody is going to wait for you to make 4 trips back and forth, take 4 samples, do the papers for each load, and so on.

I agree
But I assumed that now the continuation of the dialogue will begin, where options for "entering the market" will be proposed, and of course international. In fact, private farming, in the optimistic case, allows you to more or less support yourself and your family, and sell a small part of the surplus to your neighbors ... At a very low price.
I'm just familiar with agriculture, and I will say that as an option for COMMERCIAL earnings - for small farms it is almost unrealizable, unfortunately.
For example, I will say from this area but in a slightly different direction - milk. Conventionally, milk costs 1 dollar for 1 liter. And the purchase price from private owners who have 1-2 cows is only .... 5-15 cents per liter.

In a word - for general development and conditional income - you can do business, build a business - no. More precisely, you can but the scale must be multiplied by 1000000

[franky1]

industrialised farming has taken alot away from the olden days

instead of 9 small plot fields maintained by 9 farmers (and family as support labour) they now replaced 36 farming families with just 1 industrial sized land owner with alot of automation and modern harvesters

however in cities. where there are "food deserts" where convenience stores in deprived neighbourhoods do not have fresh vegetables. these neighbourhoods could be utilitising small spaces to "grow your own"

i know my balcony can grow alot of lettuce.

for cheapness experiment sake a few summers ago took a 2lire soda bottle cut some holes in it and put in 6 lettuces per bottle and stood them sun facing. i could go to the extent of stacking 25 across meaning 150 lettuces on one row

which with 30day growth accounts to 5 lettuces a day..of i staggered the seeding/harvest days out
and thats without causing any large impact to life. or space.
for eating a lettuce a week per neighbour can feed 35 neighbours all year(in good climate year round) or over 100 families in just the summer months

yes it gets more complicated when it comes to tomatos
12 plants of about 10 vines of cherry tomatos taking 60 days
is only 2 vine of cherry tomatos a day

but it is possible to grow more then you need in a small space

[DrBeer]

industrialized farming has taken a lot away from the olden days

instead of 9 small plot fields maintained by 9 farmers (and family as support labor) they now replaced 36 farming families with just 1 industrial sized land owner with alot of automation and modern harvesters

however in cities. where there are "food deserts" where convenience stores in deprived neighborhoods do not have fresh vegetables. these neighborhoods could be utilizing small spaces to "grow your own"

i know my balcony can grow alot of lettuce.

for cheapness experiment sake a few summers ago took a 2lire soda bottle cut some holes in it and put in 6 lettuces per bottle and stood them sun facing. i could go to the extent of stacking 25 across meaning 150 lettuces on one row

which with 30day growth accounts to 5 lettuces a day..of i staggered the seeding/harvest days out
and thats without causing any large impact to life. or space.
for eating a lettuce a week per neighbor can feed 35 neighbors all year(in good climate year round) or over 100 families in just the summer months

yes it gets more complicated when it comes to tomatoes
12 plants of about 10 vines of cherry tomatoes taking 60 days
is only 2 vine of cherry tomatoes a day

but it is possible to grow more then you need in a small space

Interesting experience
I want to add from myself - in 2020 I moved to a new apartment, the old one remained, and there I had a balcony of about 25 sq.m. moreover, it went mostly to the south, where the sun shone almost all day. The balcony was glazed and looked like an almost finished "greenhouse" for growing vegetables. Part of my balcony was stagnant, and a large amount of sun created a greenhouse effect. The way out was simple - cover the sun with PLANTED food Were bought and installed near the glazing - decorative shelving, a hydropump irrigation system, small cells for growing "crop". From April to September I had mine:
- salad
- dill
- parsley
- green arrow bow
- arugula
- cilantro
- Strawberry
...as well as a great aroma on the balcony

So the decision has the right to life. And in reality, we bought only those vegetables that we did not grow.
PS Cheri wanted to grow, but did not have time, he moved.