College Calendar: Harriet Wilson flies to Calgary

Winter woollies have been the theme of the past month, starting with Newport YFC’s bonfire, where I did my bit by cooking sausages and burgers.



The old-style Aga wasn’t giving us much heat to work with, but I didn’t have time to find out if I had poisoned anyone because I was jetting off to Canada to represent the British Blue Cattle Society.


I was part of the British stock judging team competing in the 4H international judging competition, along with Edwin Holliday from the British Charolais Society, Jack Bowen of the British Hereford Society, and Matthew Wright from the British Limousin Society.


We flew into Calgary from Heathrow and, after boarding the smallest plane I have ever seen, we took an internal flight to Regina, where we were met by Agribition volunteers and driven to our hotel in huge 4X4s.


The Canadian flags attached to the cars made me feel like the Queen, although I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have made the mistake of trying to get into the driver’s side like I did.


The Ramada Hotel was our home for the next week, and it was definitely an occasion when being the only girl had its advantage – I had a room to myself, whereas the three boys had to share.


The temperature dropped to -30C that week and I have never seen so much snow, yet, unlike in the UK, life in Regina carried on as usual.


Altogether we judged 12 classes of stock (pigs, horses, dairy and beef) and gave oral reasons on eight of the classes. This was a huge shock as the most I have ever judged at YFC is four classes in a day. We were quite relieved when they announced that we wouldn’t be judging bison this year, but the Canadian beef cattle we saw were a challenge in themselves.


In Canada, native UK Hereford and Angus are the dominant breeds, but the fat cattle have more finish about them and less shape, compared to our continental commercial cattle in the UK. These factors made it really difficult to be successful within the competition as we were looking for completely different qualities, and potentially a totally different carcass. It seemed to me that the Canadians were looking for marbling and more fat, while we were looking for conformation and higher killing-out percentages.


Judging aside, we had the opportunity to meet interesting and knowledgeable people from the beef industry worldwide; from Canada and Australia, to Kazakhstan and Mexico. Not to mention all of the friends we made within the 4H organisation, which is their equivalent to Young Farmers. I even met a couple from Derbyshire who had once sold a bull to my granddad.


We also managed to squeeze in a tour of one of John Deere’s major warehouses (most of the tractors were so big they wouldn’t even fit into our gateways at home), a trip to the Ranch Rodeo (we witnessed bronco riding, doctoring, trailering, branding, wild cow milking and a ranch-hand race), and finished up with a visit to a feeding lot of 12,000 cattle and 9,000 acres. It was incredible to see the scale of farming in Canada and discover that the cattle are outdoors all year round.


But perhaps most importantly, I made my debut on Canadian Television (CTV). Although instead of calling me Harriet, the interviewer insisted on referring to me as “Wilson”, which the boys thought was hilarious – and it quickly became my name for the rest of the trip.


I really did have the time of my life, however I couldn’t have had this opportunity if it wasn’t for Roger Birch and Jim Barber, who give up their time to take youngsters every other year. Huge thank you, as well, to my sponsors of the British Blue Society, North West British Blue Club, Clynderwen & Cardiganshire Farmers, AID Fuels, NFU Mutual and Tim Mountford of Hartley Blues.


I was extremely surprised to touch down at Heathrow to find yet more snow, not to mention beautiful twin heifer calves from one of my British Blue cows.


Now my thoughts are turning to Christmas shopping and spending some quality time with my family, although I have a feeling my dad has other plans, which might involve just as much quality time on the farm.







Harriet Wilson


19-year-old Harriet Wilson is starting a BSc in Agri-Food Marketing with Business Studies at Harper Adams. Back home she manages her own herd of British Blue cattle on the family’s 260-acre farm in Haughton, Stafford.


As well as halter training cattle to exhibit at regional and national shows, Harriet is an active member of Staffordshire Young Farmers.


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