Image: Jordan Popata from Thomas Brothers during the biosecurity round of the Nelson Young Grower competition.

Annual Young Grower competitions have been taking place throughout the regions over the last few weeks and we’ve had biosecurity rounds included in many of them.

KVH joined in the fun at the Nelson Young Grower event (7 July), introducing a biosecurity activity themed “Biosecurity - everyone, everyday”. The module looked for contestant awareness of how we make up our biosecurity team of five million. Contestants showed good knowledge of the importance of biosecurity to both New Zealand and the local Tasman region and were clued up on the practical role they play every day in protecting their own crops and orchard borders.

First time competitor Jordan Popata from Thomas Brothers was the biosecurity section winner and is now bound for a Torrent River Experience thanks to the awesome support of Abel Tasman Canyons.

At the Bay of Plenty Young Grower event (12 July) we provided a quiz to each of the competitors, who delighted us with their knowledge. Particularly impressive was their on-orchard biosecurity expertise - exhibiting great insight into ways they can ensure biosecurity relevance within their organisations as well as biosecurity risk management actions.

Congratulations to Sydney Hines from Sybton Horticulture who was the biosecurity section winner and went on to take out the whole competition claiming five of the 10 activities, plus the speech competition!

How do you compare to these young growers? Think you’d outdo them? Test yourself with the questions here, before checking the answers here. Good luck!