Page 107 - Hereford Magazine 2021

CALLUM WOODHOUSE

The top stock judge was Callum Woodhouse, who
competed with the Future Beef New Zealand team. At the
time, he was a Lincoln University student. He now has his
agriculture degree, but with Covid-19 putting a stop to his
overseas travel plans, he did a summer internship with new
geotech fenceless fencing company Halter. Subsequently,
he has secured a full-time job with them.
As well as study, Lincoln Young Farmers kept him busy
for the past three years, and in 2020 he was chairman.
“That was a challenge, especially keeping everyone in
contact through lockdown,” he says.
Callum grew up on his parents’ sheep and beef farm near
Eketahuna and went to Rathkeale College. In 2016 he and
younger brother Archie won the Young Farmer of the Year’s for over the years, such as former Young Farmer of the Year
national Teen Ag competition. finalist Patrick Crawshaw, Gisborne Hereford breeder Sam
The farm carries 3900 mixed-age ewes and 150 Hereford- Hain, and Lauren and Ritchie Cameron from Future Beef,
Angus cross cows. He says coming from a commercial farm where Callum won the Intermediate Ambassador title in
was a hidden advantage in his stock judging win. 2017. He’d also done the Tasman Young Farmers regional
“I looked for a really functional animal and didn’t get stock judging as practice just before the conference, but
hung up on some of the other traits. Animals have to work unfortunately couldn’t make the national finals in Waikato in
well on the hills for me and I’ve always got that in the November.
back of my mind. It obviously aligned with what the judges Callum says everything came together for the World
were thinking.” Hereford Conference and the youth event was simply
He says the conference being held locally made him awesome.
look more closely at New Zealand’s beef industry and take “Thanks to the organisers. It was so painless for us as
pride in it. competitors, we just had to prepare and show up, it was so
“Step out of the day-to-day farming and look at the well organised.
bigger picture and talk about it with people from other “It absolutely exceeded expectations. To have that many
countries doing the same thing but in different ways. The like-minded people from all over the world – we learnt so
biggest contrast was with the Americans in terms of what much in the event and also in the chin-wagging on the bus
they select for. We’re all about functionality, that has to be on the way to and from things. It’s been good staying in
number one, the animal’s ability to get around the hills.” contact with some of them too; it’s given me some people to
Callum had some good advice from people he’s worked stay with when I finally get to do my OE.”

MIKE BREMS

Mike Brems, named the Most Valuable Participant in the
youth competition, says he loved the people side of the event.
“From day one it just clicked between us; it wasn’t about
the competition, but more about making new friends. The
competition was fun. I personally learned a lot, not just
about New Zealand agriculture, but something I could take
home with me, such as how to winter cows cheaply, or how
to judge a group of heifers in front of a crowd.”
Mike, 23, was born in the US but raised in Denmark, and
owns a Hereford farm called Hereford by Brems with his
father Klaus on Fyn, just south of Odense in Denmark.
“We run purebred Hereford and commercial Angus. We
currently have 10 cows, but are still gaining numbers. In 2019
I finished a four-year agriculture education in Denmark. Right
after I finished school I went to Australia for a month and on
further to Canada, to learn more about the cattle business.”
He has worked in Saskatchewan, Canada, for two years and “I have always dreamt about having my own ranch, and
is moving to work for Jensen Bros. Herefords in Kansas in the make a living out of that, regardless [of whether] it’s in
United States. Denmark or the US. Maybe one day it will come true!”

Year 2021 HEREFORD MAGAZINE 105
World Hereford
Conference 2020
Queenstown NZ