Young winemakers
2015 saw the first ever Young Winemaker of the Year competition held in New Zealand.
The scholarship is valued at $7000 and includes a fully paid six to 12 month AgriVenture programme to the recipient's choice of destination country.
AgriVenture gives young people aged between 18 and 30 the opportunity to travel and work on a farm, in horticulture or home management in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Europe and Japan.
The programme is run by the International Agricultural Exchange Association (IAEA), a non-governmental, non-profit membership organisation which has been operating farm work placements since 1965. Around 30,000 young people have been hosted overseas since the programme's inception.
This year's AgriVenture New Zealand Young Farmers Scholarship recipient Kirsty Dickins was delighted to be gifted the award especially because "she wasn't really expecting to win."
AgriVenture program manager Pauline Norrish says "AgriVenture Global is delighted to be arranging an around the world programme for Kirsty Dickins the winner of the first AgriVenture/NZYF scholarship. We believe that she will be a great ambassador for NZYF and AgriVenture during her travels overseas."
Dickins says it was "super exciting" when she made it to the final stage of the application process, which included a phone interview, as she was already part way through the application process to take an AgriVenture exchange.
"I just want to say thank you to NZYF and AgriVenture because I was already planning on doing an exchange with AgriVenture after seeing one of their brochures - this scholarship is just going to make things so much easier."
Dickins is planning to start her year-long exchange later this year after visiting Africa. She will be splitting her time between Canada and Europe and is looking forward to experiencing different farming systems while seeing the world.
"This is a good opportunity to do something I really enjoy while getting the chance to travel as well."
Dickins is keen to learn new things about agriculture while overseas and intends to bring that knowledge back home to an on-farm sheep and beef role upon her return.
Dickins studied a Bachelor of Applied Science at Lincoln University before she began working for Landcorp two years ago. She started as a business technician and is currently employed as a business manager who oversees a portfolio of three farms.
