The road to the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final is underway, with all regional finals now finished and competitors selected.

Seven FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Finalists, 14 FMG Junior Young Farmer of the Year teams and 21 AgriKidsNZ teams are heading to Whangarei to battle it out for the top awards, in July.

Wanting to celebrate the regional final season loudly and proudly, New Zealand Young Farmers CEO Lynda Coppersmith has called it an absolute success.

“To have travelled across the country during the omicron outbreak, held seven great regional finals with minimum disruptions and selected all our incredible competitors – all with no outbreaks at our events – is a testament to our exceptional teams and volunteers who put this contest together and their dedication and resilience.

She says they went further than just implementing Government guidelines to keep people safe.

“We reconfigured the event layout with different entry and exit points for spectators and competitors across all three levels of contest, made masks mandatory, had competitors wear gloves and put multiple other mechanisms in place to protect hosts and competitors moving through modules.

“Our conveners, volunteer teams and sponsors went above and beyond to make the events the best they could be, some working with extremely minimal boots on the ground as isolation rules kicked in.

“Competitors, spectators and event attendees were also fantastic at adhering to the protections put in place and we can’t thank them all enough for coming out to support us.

“After every event I say this, but the contest series truly would not be possible without our amazing volunteers and the hard hours, blood, sweat and tears they put into organising each event.

“Our convenors, committees and those who raise their hands on the day are the life and blood to FMG Young Farmer of the Year, and to say thank you and we appreciate you won’t ever be enough to recognise their work.”

The road to Grand Final is now underway for all 98 FMG Young Farmer of the Year Contest Series competitors.

For the first time in several years, all seven FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Finalists are based on farms.

Waikato - Bay of Plenty’s Chris Poole, Tasman’s Jonny Brown, Otago Southland’s Alex Field and Taranaki Manawatu’s David Reesby are all dairy farmers.

Meanwhile, Northern’s Tim Dangen, East Coast’s Mark Wallace and Aorangi’s Tom Adkins are based on sheep and beef farms.

Held across three days in Whangarei from the July 7-9, Grand Final will be action packed with hundreds of people expected to be in attendance.

The Grand Final also coincides with the New Zealand Young Farmers (NZYF) AGM, Norwood National Awards and NZYF Tournament Series finals.