OLDS, Alta. — One way to get young people involved in agriculture is to give them something meaningful to do where they can learn new skills and have fun doing it.
One of these events is the annual Canadian Junior Angus Showdown.
It was held in Olds this year from July 16-18 and attracted 118 participants from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island.
“The beef sector is shrinking, but our program is growing each year,” said Belinda Wagner of the Canadian Angus Association. “We want the kids to stay in the business.”
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The event is open to people younger than 21, who learn marketing, grooming, judging and showing skills.
They also form teams for a cook-off, in which each group must prepare two steaks for the judges.
The young people run the event, and adults stay on the sidelines as much as possible.
A significant change for the program is the number of children younger than eight coming to the event. They are known as peewees, and Chad Lorenz, president of the Junior Angus Association, said some are as young as three or four.
He said this increasing interest is a good way to develop young leaders such as himself.
Lorenz, who is also a national Angus ambassador to help promote the breed, said he has derived tremendous benefits from the program with awards and travel. At 21, his term is drawing to an end.
“I always have been a natural leader. I started with 4-H and then moved to the Junior Angus Association,” he said.
For him it was a way to get more involved in the breed as a businessperson and producer. He raises purebred Angus at his family farm near Markerville, Alta.
Lorenz has graduated from Lakeland College’s agriculture school and now works for Bouchard Livestock, a purebred marketing firm.
He has travelled Canada as an ambassador, attended the World Angus Forum in New Zealand in 2013, and at the end of July flies to the international Palermo livestock show Buenos Aires, Argentina.
