OPINION: For generations of Catabrians, the Show is an annual tradition.
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Garry Diack has been going to the Canterbury A&P Show since 1962.
The Canterbury A&P Show is special. For generations, it’s been a place where farming families come together and where town meets country.
It’s part of Canterbury’s identity and for South Island families like mine, it’s an annual tradition.
The Canterbury Show is more than a simple rural event in an
urban setting. It is where world-class farmers and growers meet, exchange and demonstrate innovation.
As the years have progressed, this scope has widened from animal and plant breeding to include food processing, technology, capability and productivity. It is a showcase of the next generation of agriculture and the contribution it continues to make to very urban issues, such as funding rural centres, hospitals, roads and infrastructure.
The Show is the “town square” of past and future, of rural and urban, of tradition and innovation.
My first visit to the Show was in 1962. It was a family affair and we were, of course, dressed in our summer best. What I remember about the Show was the smell of animals (back ends mostly), white-coated officials and judges, how proud the riders sat upon their horses, the dust, the candy floss, the magnificent machinery you could climb all over – and getting lost!
It was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which illustrated our vulnerability to sudden geopolitical upheavals. The Beatles released Love Me Do, starting a cultural movement that would test the ties of our families. The first Americans went into space, using new technology that changed the way we now farm. Europe was considering Britain’s application to join the EEC, which would soon end our reliance on that market.
Canterbury's Cup and Show week is underway. Photo / George Heard
In that dramatic year, the Canterbury A&P Show served the same purpose it has for 160 years – to help farming communities weather changing times, economic challenges and the evolution of farming itself.
That purpose remains relevant today: giving people confidence by bringing them together to celebrate agriculture, share knowledge and recognise achievement.
The events and trends in the minds of my parents and other farmers and townies attending the 1962 A&P Show would result 15 years later in the creation of Ravensdown.
In 1977, farmers led by Sir Peter Elworthy recognised that by working together, they could get reliable access to quality fertiliser at a fair price. They set up Ravensdown to put their needs first amid the bevy of challenges stressing farming.
No individual farmer can control international fertiliser markets, shipping costs or geopolitical events. But through collective ownership, farmers have built a business with the scale, infrastructure, expertise and relationships to help navigate those challenges.
Competitions such as wood chopping are part of the Show. Photo / George Heard
Often, the value of co-operation and community institutions is only apparent when they’re under threat. The loss of the Canterbury A&P Show left an unbearable gap in the farming and wider community. It threatened our collective “town square”.
There was no single local place to exhibit livestock, machinery and rural innovation. No place to connect rural businesses, pass experience and ideas between generations and show young people the opportunities agriculture offers. No place for our urban neighbours to understand and feel empathy for the people, skills and hard work behind New Zealand’s food and fibre production.
Its return reflects a commitment from the organisers to stay true to these core values. That’s why it’s back to a stronger agricultural focus, and the Wednesday-to-Friday format.
As we approach our 50th anniversary, Ravensdown’s partnership with the A&P Show underscores our legacy: a belief that farmers are stronger when they work together and that investing collectively today can create benefits for generations to come.
When things get tough, for generations we have gathered at the town square and confronted the future from there. The Show is our Canterbury town square and as such, it needs to remain a place of strength.
That spirit of co-operation will help New Zealand face new challenges. From volatile global markets and rising costs to changing environmental expectations and the need to attract the next generation into farming. The gates are now open at Canterbury Agricultural Park and Ravensdown is there again. If there’s one thing our history has taught us, it’s that New Zealand agriculture is stronger when we work together.
– Garry Diack is chief executive of Ravensdown
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