It was our first face-to-face meeting for Farmer Time for Schools, an educational programme that connects farmers virtually with New Zealand primary and intermediate school pupils.
It aims to inspire, engage and educate young people about the journey of food from farm to fork in the ever-changing, diverse agricultural industry.
Saying a silent thank you to the AI-Gods for providing an early lamb — I'm blaming airborne insemination — which provided the cuteness factor for our first catch-up, the feedback from the class was far from silent.
To say the kids were engaged was an understatement; they were practically jumping out of the screen, desperate to introduce themselves and transfixed by both lamb and dog. I'm sure the middle-aged farmer rated a distant third.
It wasn't a top-level conversation about the impact of Trump tariffs on global food and agribusiness, nor was it a deep dive into over-capacity in the red meat industry. But what it was hopefully the first of many chats with a class of city kids about everyday life on a farm, its inhabitants and the farming practices that occur on the land and the reasons behind them.
They came armed with a list of questions including how to breed sheep (that one received a fairly basic answer...), where I got my dogs from and how I trained them — the great thing about young children is they are easily impressed even with a fairly average whistling demonstration — and how to stop being rammed by a lamb, the latter in response to a youngster's own unfortunate lamb-ramming event.
About 10 or so minutes later, the call ended, and the teacher tells me they then started practising their dog whistles and were still oohing and aahing over the lamb which had wiggled her tail enthusiastically for the camera.
It's my second year in the Farmer Time programme — last year was a class from another Auckland school and they were equally as engaged.
I sent them wool to illustrate drawings of sheep with and children's books about farming and, before each session, I would send them a video featuring some aspect of farming in the South and they would then ask their questions.
As I write, I'm already thinking about what I will do for our next session; at this stage, it's a toss-up between an introduction to the full dog squad and a run-down on the roles of heading dogs and huntaways on New Zealand farms, or a very basic butter-making lesson featuring a jar and milk.
As farmers, I believe we have a responsibility to help educate urban Kiwis — no matter how young — about farming and farming practices, and show them the raft of career opportunities available within the wider agricultural sector.
Long gone are the days when every child had grandparents or aunts and uncles on farms, where they would spend their school holidays and gain some understanding of the connection between farm and fork, and why we do what we do.
And never under-estimate the smarts of a 6 or 7-year-old. One child last year said he wanted to know how food came to get on his table. Farmers have a big role to play in that.
You don't have to be Farmer of the Year with the latest Lamborghini tractor a la Jeremy Clarkson to take part in this initiative — according to last year's class, an ageing Valtra tractor was a Monster Truck.
You just need to be everyday farmers who are passionate about what they do. Just like the good folk in this publication who make their own communities a better place to live and contribute to New Zealand's biggest export industry.
So let's have these conversations with our young people and help them understand the industry that we love from the proverbial horse's mouth, rather than from ill-informed keyboard warriors or activists.
Speaking of conversations, we asked a variety of individuals and organisations for their thoughts on what agriculture in New Zealand in 2050 would look like. Read their ideas in the following pages.
— Sally Rae, Business and Rural Editor, Allied Media
