Agricultural Town of the Year Award
Established in 2019, the South Australian Agricultural Town of the Year Award recognises SA towns that excel in agricultural practices and are great places to live and work.
In addition to being recognised as the South Australian Agricultural Town of the Year, the winning town receives:
- town entrance sign recognising their achievement
- certificate and trophy presented by the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development
- community event and sign unveiling to celebrate the town's achievement
- double-page feature in SALIFE magazine
- media exposure
- video and stories published to showcase the achievements of individuals and businesses that have made a significant contribution to the town
- networking opportunities with other regional towns.
The award is an initiative of the Department of Primary Industries and Regions and is delivered in partnership with InDaily. It highlights the vital role that agriculture plays in regional development.
Three finalist Ag Towns announced
The three finalist towns have been selected by an independent judging panel, and they are Keith, Kimba and Lameroo.
The winner will be crowned at the Regional Showcase Awards later this year.
Learn more about the Ag Town AwardPrevious Ag Town winners
2024 – Penola
Penola, in South Australia’s Limestone Coast, was named the 2024 Agricultural Town of the Year, in recognition of its dedication to agriculture, agricultural education and community.
Penola was commended for its wide variety of agricultural pursuits ranging from dairy, beef and lamb to grains, potatoes, forestry, and wine. The judges also noted the town's commitment to agricultural education with impressive uptake of the local agricultural program as well as George the Farmer, who is sharing Australian agriculture with the world.
The strong collaboration between community, local businesses and local government was also commended along with the town's joyful community spirit and pride.
The area started to be settled in the 1840s, so agriculture has changed over the years.
And nowadays timber industry, other things like viticulture, we still are very good and big regions for fattening sheep and cattle.
There's the whole spectrum of of agriculture is here.
We've just got the climate and the conditions to to produce good food.
It's a cool climate region and that is of great benefit as winemaker.
So I love making wine here.
It's also a really, I guess, agricultural community.
So it's pretty friendly.
You know, people understand farming.
I came here 25 years ago.
I had this small area of land around the sharing shed of turned into a campground.
I've seen some farmers that are now offering accommodation where people can come and see what farming is about.
People come and stay with us and help us make wine.
And I think it's that whole thing of people living in the city, you know, they they do want to know where food comes from.
We're probably been doing the farm tours for 10 or 12 years.
We've had friends and relatives that have worked in the cities and come back to live here, and they brought their friends out.
They come to the wineries, and a lot of them have never been on a farm.
So we take them for a tour and there's lots of things that they don't understand.
Then we hear back a few weeks later that they're taking an interest back in farming.
Their aim is to bring people into our accommodation and our farm tours to look at what we are doing here, but then that has spin offs with the wine industry and the town itself.
It just brings more people to the town.
I think Ag education is really important anywhere.
It doesn't matter if in a regional town or in a metro town, everybody needs to know where their food comes from.
I'm the founder and author of George the Farmer, an educational brand that teaches kids about where their food and fibre comes from.
I was looking for fun farming books or apps, and all that I could find were sort of old American or English style books.
The idea just sort of dawned on me that there was this really great opportunity to create a character that could inspire lots of little farm kids all across Australia.
Penola has really embraced George the Farmer it is the home of George the Farmer, and today we've helped educate over 600,000 kids across Australia with our resources.
I think there's a lot of opportunity with George the Farmer going forward in a town like Penola.
But I've always been lucky in that there's always been a diversity of agricultural pursuits in the region.
All of that is really an add on to a successful community that Penola is today.
And to have a successful community, you need to have successful industries within that community.
It's a community, so everybody's involved in the whole, the whole aspect.
I think every farmer would be on a committee or of some sort.
We also donate two steers to the school program.
Over the last couple of years, I really had a passion and a dream, and that was to change agriculture in rural areas and a part of that was coming to Penola and had the opportunity to start an agriculture program.
But last year we had about 312 doing AG, and they have all got jobs in the agriculture field, which has been great.
This year we've got a lot of kids which are actually branching out and actually wanting to be a vet, one of being agronomists, a stock agent also.
So there's plenty of opportunities for those kids in ten years time.
I can say Penola really being a capital of actual agriculture, just behind me, alone is so many businesses that are all looking and expanding to grow.
We've already got another 12 kids that have come through.
Just because the agriculture program is growing all around us, all the industries are growing and you know, they're wanting workers because these guys are the next generation that are going to take over those jobs.
So it's been absolutely amazing.
It's center of the universe.
It's the center of the south east, and it's one of the richest agricultural areas in Australia.
And it's so diverse and untapped, really.