DAN Toohey is bringing the Australian National Field Days at Borenore into the future this year in his new role as chairman.
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Mr Toohey has been a member of the field days committee since 1994 and said its long-term success is about adapting to changing demographics and farming practices as well as meeting the needs of consumers.
For 35 years he ran the saleyards for Orange City Council and said the education and training he received in the roll also applies to his role with the field days.
“Basically it’s a three- year term and I think probably the concept is to keep a bit of fresh blood flowing through the organisation, it’s probably not the hardest job in the world but there’s a fair bit of time involved,” Mr Toohey said.
In that time he said he has also seen great changes from a traditional agricultural focused field days to an event with more lifestyle and entertainment options.
“We’ve been trying to make it more relevant to people in the district, we have to have something to cover the family group,” he said.
As a result, Mr Toohey said in the past few years crowd numbers have picked up and this year about 90 per cent of field days sites have been booked ahead of the three day event from Thursday, October 22 to Saturday October 24.
“We’ve had good retention of sites and we’ve had quite a few new exhibitors put their hand up this year, they are probably people that haven’t been there before, some camping people and people with other products,” Mr Toohey said.
“The other thing is this year’s field day focus is eFarm, we are trying to look down that long narrow path on where the future of agriculture is and the blending of agriculture and technology.
“It makes it all very interesting because we have an aging population of farmers and a huge influx of technology. I think a lot of people will go there to see this stuff and the good thing about field days is they are hands on.”
tanya.marschke@fairfaxmedia.com.au
