Agriculture students showcase practical skills at Olustvere competition
Around 170 future farmers took part in a Viljandi County college's sporting event, which mixed farming with some fairly high intensity exercises.
Instead of hazing first-year classmates or playing practical jokes, the fourth-year students at the Olustvere teenindus- ja maamajanduskool agricultural college, together with the student council, annually invite all young people studying agricultural professions to compete in teams.
Riho Kala, head of the study farm at the Olustvere school, explained that young people's interest in studying agriculture-related fields is growing.
"There's often talk of a labor shortage, but in my opinion, that's not a problem. Young people are interested, and more than ten years have shown that the number of students coming to the first year is very high," Kala said.
Olustvere has been holding the event for about a decade now – for instance last year's competition involved a potato-harvesting race.
This year's activities followed a similarly agricultural theme.
"We have sack weighing, then livestock weight estimation, as well as strength events. We lift grain sacks, and do hanging holds," student council president Anton Aston Arro said.
In the case of those static hangs from the bar, an exercise easier to watch other people doing than to perform oneself for a significant period of time, the "bar" was actually the crossbar on an agricultural machine.
Fourth-year student Reimo Seppor hails from a rural background, so studying to become a farmer was a natural choice for him.
"There's a farm near my home, and it really interested me even as a child. I had to go to the farm from a young age and see how things really work," he said.
But can a vocational school really keep up with the needs of the agricultural sector, and teach everything that rural life actually requires?
"The theory here is quite extensive, and with the extension of the curriculum even more theory was added, apparently. But under the current program, it is totally enjoyable," fourth-year agriculture student Johanna Liset Oder said.
"The practical things taught here are exactly what you do in the field every day. And everything related to animals is what you will go on to do after school," another student, Andres Anijärv, who is in the third year, noted.
"I feel that I am in the right place, doing everything that needs to be done for real, and I do it wholeheartedly. I could become a veterinarian in the future," Seppor added.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Marko Tooming
