Devon Evans, Gleaner Writer
Students attending the annual Minard Estate Livestock and Beef Festival make a dash to capture calves for their schools during the festival on Thursday November 10, 2005 in Brown's Town, St. Ann, Jamaica . The calves captured are donated to the schools of the lucky students. - PHOTO BY ROGER ROBINSON
BROWNS TOWN, St. Ann:
Following a two-year absence, the Minard Livestock Show and Beef festival was successfully staged at the Minard Estate in Brown's Town, St. Ann, Jamaica , on November 10.
Held under the theme: "Exploiting the Potential of our local livestock," the highlights of this year's festival were the cattle auction, culinary beef display, and the very exciting calf scramble involving students from a number of schools.
HUNDREDS ATTENDED
Hundreds of persons, mainly children from nearly 100 schools across the island, were in attendance to view some of Jamaica's prime beef and diary cattle on display in addition to native and exotic goats.
The students took part in various competitions and were exposed to video presentation and literature design to heighten their awareness of the livestock industry.
Coordinator of the show Vivian Kildare said the organisers were extremely delighted with the overwhelming support of the schools. "They showed a lot of interest. They asked all the necessary questions about the industry and to us, this was very encouraging," Mr. Kildare said.
LARGE TURNOUT
Due to the large turnout of students, he said the organisers have already decided to move towards making next year's show much bigger and better.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister, Roger Clarke, who was guest speaker at the event, was equally pleased with the large turnout of students. Mr. Clarke told the students that if the agriculture sector is to move forward, they will be required to spearhead this development and he encouraged them to
get involved and become future leaders of the sector.
President of the Students' Council of the Sidney Pagon Agriculture School in St. Elizabeth, Mark Smith said he and his fellow students were enlightened and left with a better insight of the Jamaica livestock industry.
MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE
For young RicoWeldon of Bamboo Primary and Junior High in St. Ann, it was a memorable experience, especially when he recalled how a student of his school fell in the ring during the calf scramble competition.
Among the prize winners were Christopher Anderson of the Sidney Pagon Agriculture School in the vegetable critter competition. Oshane Mchuge of York Castle High School won the diary competition. Horace Kennedy of Charlton Primary won the beef cattle judging competition, Jenieva Williams of Fern Court High school won the goat judging competition and Stephen Jackson, a teacher of Browns Town, St. Ann won prizes in both the dairy and beef judging competition.
