May 31-June 3 2019, GOLOTCZYZNA and SIERAKOWO Open Farm Trade
The following account was given by Jack, a EUROPEA student from UK, who was there at 4th AGROLYMPICS in Poland:
“This was our leaving day: we all met at Carl’s house early in the morning to travel to the airport. On the way there we all realised how when going through the different county’s how the land changes and the way the land is farmed. We got there in good time to meet Charlie. I’ve never been to an airport on my own, so this was all a new experience, but Mikayla did help me a lot as she was like my mother. Once we were up in the sky it was amazing to see all the land and then coming into Poland how their fields were set out comparing to our ones as they have fields split into 5 instead of 1 which was interesting to. When driving from the airport you could see how these people farmed, it was on small scale but with many different crops and they had all different types of kit. When we got there the people were very nice and welcomed us very well.
This was the first day of the AGROLYMPICS: we got a chat early in the morning and instructed us what to do. We got a bus there and it was nice to see how other places farmed. When we arrived, the event was like the Suffolk show but in Poland they had some amazing kit. We all gathered round the stage and we got a greeting from the main bloke and told were to go we went to our first event. That was hard, beehive making this was going to put us to test and it did but we pushed hard and completed it well. Then every 20 mins we had another task and we kept working are way through these doing our best. We had some disagreements, but we done very well. It was all new to us as we have never done these tasks before. On the way home we got speaking to the Netherland’s people and we became very good friends with them and we got talking how they farm and I was amazed how different it is so I’m going to go and visit these farms and they are going to come and see how we farm as well.
This was the last day of competitions and I feel this is the day we pushed hard and worked as a team better. We all put are efforts in and we was slowly getting better at this. When we woke up, we had a lovely breakfast in the morning then a bus journey to the show to do the tasks when we got there, we all had a chat to see where we were going. Then we went to our first task which was making butter. We all did very well in this, and we just missed 1st place on this then we went to stacking bales with a loader. I did this well. I made a few people laugh by being so competitive. Then it was lunch we had a parade with all the countries and had a big feast and a look round the show. The kit they had was very impressive, then we supported the other teams and watched them compete. Then we completed the last few challenges which were hand milking cows, bale stacking and bale pitching. We seemed to like milking as we came first but the bale challenges were too hard as we weren’t cut out for it being too used to a machine to do it, I guess. So now the tasks were over, we had the final scores and photos taken. We got speaking to other countries while applauding them for what they won, and we made many friends what we all have contacts for so we can see how they farm. We got a bus back to the College to have a final gathering and a disco to say thank you and well done for what you have achieved. We had an amazing time!
This was going home day. We first started off with a massive breakfast then we went and had photos with our medals and trophies then it was time to say goodbye to everyone who we made friends with. We were quite gutted to say bye to the French and the Netherlands people as we had made friends right from the start. We got back to the airport easily as they kindly gave us a special bus, I still couldn’t get over how they farmed as many fields were no bigger than half an acre, so it was strange to see this. On arrival we had to go through the airport again with my ‘mother’ Mikayla helping me as I was still lost, and we got on the plane safely. When we were in the air, we realised how much woodland Poland has compared to England. I want to go there again and have a go at farming out there, this trip made me want to explore all the different countries and see how everyone farms. It was an amazing experience and I would love to do it again.
We all would like to thank the organisers and their helpers, the judges and the Polish College staff for looking after us so well. We tried to keep the place tidy and best of all made many new friends from lots of different countries. Finally, I would like to thank my College and EUROPEA-UK who gave us the chance to be part of the event.”
Acknowledgements: many thanks to Jack (UK) and Charlie (UK) 🙂
Photos: from Judit (HU)
