IHC Calf Scheme celebrates 25th birthday

Media release
15 May 2009

IHC Calf Scheme celebrates 25th birthday with a silage 'cake'

Farmer's know how to throw a party - and what better excuse than the 25th birthday of the PGG Wrightson IHC Calf Scheme.

To mark the occasion, IHC is throwing a party for calves with a huge silage cake - and 25 candles, of course - at the IHC Tarr Road farm in Cambridge.

For 25 years New Zealand dairy farmers have been raising calves and PGG Wrightson has been helping to sell them to raise money for people living with intellectual disability. Since the Calf Scheme started, IHC has received over $20 million from 100,000 calves.

No red carpet affair is complete without celebrities - and Calf Scheme patron Colin 'Pinetree' Meads will be there along with one of the driving forces in New Zealand agriculture, PGG Wrightson chairman Craig Norgate.

There are gumboots to be won and dairy farmer Allen Mockford, from Te Awamutu, will be rounding everyone up on his Honda Quad Bike. Allen won the bike as a Calf Scheme spot prize last year. Allen has been donating calves to the scheme since 2007.

IHC are marking the 25th anniversary with the launch of an agricultural scholarship which will enable a young person with an intellectual disability to train for a career in the rural sector.

The scholarship will be supported by the IHC Foundation and delivered through an educational service provider.

IHC will be announcing detail and calling for applications for the scholarship later this year.

The idea behind the Calf Scheme was dreamed up by Taranaki farmer Norm Cashmore, who offered a pair of gumboots to every farmer donating a calf to the Taranaki branch of IHC.

Blenheim dairy farmer Mick Murphy heard about Norm's efforts. He travelled north to see the idea in action and decided it would work nationally. It was an unusual idea to ask farmers to raise a calf and donate the proceeds to IHC - and at first the IHC national fundraising committee needed some convincing. But the idea turned out to be inspired and the scheme was launched in 1984.

Colins Meads is very proud of the contribution dairy farmers have made. "I always think they are the most generous people in the world. They have been doing their bit for a long time for people with disabilities in New Zealand."

He says the best part about it is that the money raised goes directly back into providing services in rural communities.

ENDS