Page 114 - Hereford Magazine 2022

It’s all

about

the beef

Words: Cheyenne Nicholson/Editor.
Photos: Maria Robbie/supplied.

Fifteen years on from its establishment, Future Beef New
Zealand (FBNZ) is a growing success story.
It was established to encourage and promote youth
involvement and interest in the beef industry, as a joint
development from Performance Beef Breeders New Zealand and
Beef + Lamb New Zealand. People with Hereford links have been
strong contenders for its titles over the years, as have Hereford
steers and heifers in its annual hoof and hook competition.
FBNZ’s youth programme is aimed at eight to 24-year-olds
from all walks of life and features a range of prizes, including
the coveted intermediate and senior ambassador awards.
The beef ambassador prize provides winners with
experience and opportunities to help them get started in their Top: Hannah Gibb at Australian Agricultural Company’s Goonoo
chosen agricultural careers. Hannah Gibb won the 2017 Allflex Feedlot where she is an operations analyst. Above: Mark Daniel
Senior Beef Ambassador title, and her career has continued Murphy competing for the NZ Hereford team at the World
to go from strength to strength. Growing up, she spent much Hereford Conference youth events in Wanaka.
of her time with her grandparents, Mike and Lorraine Langtry,
on their Awhea Hereford stud, and worked on the farm during “The best part about the competition is the connections you
her university studies. make with the younger generation coming through, and being
While travelling, Hannah stayed with a Hereford breeder able to help and give something back,” Mark says.
in Australia whose daughter had just started a graduate Otago farmer Will Gibson won the Intermediate Beef
programme with the country’s largest and oldest integrated Ambassador award in 2011. His Foulden Hill Genetics stud has
cattle and beef producer, the Australian Agricultural Company Hereford and Santa Gertrudis cattle along with Suffolk, Suftex
(AACo). Hannah successfully applied for a graduate role and is and Merino sheep. He’s always had a passion for Herefords and
now operations analyst there. a focus on genetics, aiming to breed hill country Herefords
“I remain very connected to Herefords. I have good friends with a strong emphasis on mothering and milking ability,
and contacts here in Australia to get my red and white cattle alongside growth and muscling, with the goal of breeding true
fix. I have had the privilege of judging at a few youth events as to type Hereford cattle.
well. I’ve also got some special embryos on ice, and I’m looking As the demand for knowledgeable, capable people in the
forward to the day I can find my own patch of dirt and get some agricultural sector continues to rise, exacerbated by the effects
calves on the ground,” Hannah says. of Covid-19, FBNZ is an essential organisation for the beef
Current committee member Mark Daniel Murphy runs his sector, says Future Beef chairperson Marie FitzPatrick. She
Longacre Herefords stud alongside working on his parents’ says it shows the true meaning behind the beef industry –
beef breeding block. Mark first competed in 2013. paddock to plate, hoof to hook.

112 HEREFORD MAGAZINE Year 2022