There are few incentives, if any, for youngsters to pursue a career in any sector of agriculture, but those who do, are driven by dedication, enthusiasm and sheer passion for their chosen profession.

Farming for these hardy individuals is far from just a job, it’s a vocation. A healthy, fat bank balance doesn’t come close to the thrill experienced bringing new life into a world calving cows, lambing ewes or working all night to make the best silage possible for winter feed rations – even if it does mean slaving away all weekend and most of the night on a windswept hillside while your friends are away partying.

But then, those select youngsters who are willing to sign up to today’s extremely long, hard hours and bureaucratic farming policies – if indeed there are any left – are probably the ones who have the drive and the ambition to take the industry forward into a new era.

Just take young Alastair Jackson, who at the age of just 20, has not only attained an HND in agriculture from Aberdeen, he’s also travelled far and wide working and viewing various farming techniques, in between coming back to the UK to work either free-lance or for some of the country’s top livestock farmers.

But more importantly, he’s also landed his dream job, as stockman for Kevin Watret, who owns the noted pedigree Solwayview British Blue cattle herd just outside Annan, in Dumfriesshire.

“I like working with all the good beef cattle breeds, but I enjoy working with Blues the most,” said Alastair. “They are the breed of the future and they work well in beef and dairy units. Where would the Holstein be without the British Blue?”

Having been born and brought up with pedigree stock in Lanarkshire and Fife – where his parents, Allan Jackson and Susan Campbell are also renowned for their stockmanship capabilities – Alastair was always going to pursue a career in agriculture, having joined Young Farmers and triumphed in both local and national stockjudging competitions at an early age. However, with the home farm now based at Woodyett, Kirkfieldbank, limited to just 100 acres, Alastair or Ali as he’s better known, knew he would have to stand on his own two feet.

And he’s certainly done that, as such has been his enthusiasm for all types of farming, but particularly pedigree beef cattle, that Kevin went in pursuit of Alastair to work for him.

“It is so difficult to find someone suitable to work on a farm especially when they’d be working with livestock,” said Kevin. “It’s even more difficult to get someone to work with pedigree stock – it’s just not something you can advertise as you end up with two or three guys in their 40s applying and none of them are suitable. I’d far rather take on a young enthusiast lad who’s keen on pedigree stock to work alongside me because you can train them up to work the way you want.

“There are fewer and fewer people out there with any interest in farming, purely because there is far more money to be made elsewhere without having to work all hours under the sun. Therefore when you see a young, enthusiast, able person like Ali, you grab hold of them – they’re our future,” added Kevin, who since breaking a bone in his foot at the end of last year, is having to let Alastair do virtually all the work on the farm, and just as importantly, is confident to leave him to it.

But while Ali has undoubtedly landed on his feet, being to paid to assist in breeding and bringing out of top quality Blues to show up and down the country, he is the first to admit a huge amount of work is involved, and, on a daily basis.

“The work is great and it’s fun but it’s a lot harder than I expected. If you’re looking for a nine to five job, five days a week, forget it. Farming is definitely a 24/7 occupation.”

Nevertheless, while our Ali is relieved to have found his ideal job, he admits he hopes to travel more to see other types of farming in years to come. And, of course, ideally he aims to eventually have a farm of his own one day.

He added: “It’s great experience travelling and seeing different types of farming in different countries. New Zealand is so different to what many people think – there are a lot of wee paddocks and animal welfare is not nearly as good as it is in this country.”

However, while farming down under is based on commercial reality with little if any expense spared on saving individual animals, Ali was most impressed at the extent these countries go to, to reduce the risk of disease entering their countries, with a large number of sniffer dogs at all airports to ensure no foreign food is imported illegally.

Outwith working on various farms in New Zealand and Australia, travelling to Belgium to see Blues and Beltex in their homeland, and working on beef and sheep farms in Scotland and England, Ali was also one of only seven extremely fortunate youngsters to get the chance to go on an all expenses paid trip to the Canadian Western Agribition in Regina, Canada.

This 10-day trip of a lifetime arises every year through individual beef breed societys, who sponsor a small number individuals between 17-21 years of age to represent their breed and make up part of the British stockjudging team at Agribition.

Ali represented the British Blues and travelled alongside Bobby Landers for the Beef Shorthorns; Bill Tucker from the Charolais; Robert Pearce and Kirsty McCaig from the Simmentals; Scott Coates representing the Simmental breed and Dave Gethin, who was forward for the Limousin breed.

An entire day was set aside for the stockjudging whereby the young Brits had to select the best and the worst out of 12 different classes which included beef heifer calves, bred beef heifers, bred heifers, breeding gilts, bull calves, dairy cows, dairy heifer calves, heavy and light horses, market pigs, market steers and performance Limo bulls.

The team also had to give eight sets of reasons. Sadly, the team itself failed to make much impression on the leader board, but Ali came a very credible 10th out of 76 entrants in the individual competition.

“Going to Agribition is the best thing I’ve ever done. It was fantastic experience but it wouldn’t have happened without Rodger Birch, who does an amazing amount of work trying to source sponsorship for us to go. He pays for his own trip every year, but for the past three years he has organisied, supervised, coached and sourced sponsorship for a team of young beef breeders – along with assistance from Rob Evans and Jim Barber – to enable us all to go,” said Ali.

Notably, Rodger has attended all but three of the last 20 years of Agribition and has been particularly active in encouraging the young Brits to participate in the event’s 4H judging competitions.

In fact, he is regarded in such high esteem by the organisers at Agribition for his ability to mentor today’s youngsters that in 1999 he was presented with the Jim Lewthwiate Award – named after one of the event’s founding fathers. This award has only been presented to 15 individuals in Agribition’s 39-year history, and Rodger is one of only two non-Canadians to have received the honour.

Stewart Stone, chairman of Agribition’s international market development added:

“We have had the pleasure of witnessing the very significant contribution Rodger Birch has made to Canadian and British agriculture through his participation at Canadian Western Agribition and want to express our sincere appreciation to him. We hope to see another strong contingent from Britain at the 2010 event.”

Backing up these statements, Ali added: “Going to Agribition was great and having the chance to see different types of farming in Canada was amazing, but it wouldn’t have happened without Rodger.”

Commenting on the various cattle systems he said: “The beef cattle out there are much more uniform and they’re all bred to produce beef. We also discovered that, while the national average herd size for both beef and dairy is just 35, there are beef lots with up to 40,000 head of cattle, mostly black.

“Their pedigree system is completely different too – full blood, and half blood beef cattle can still be pedigree and everything is black. You get black Simmentals, black Limousins and black Gelbvieh.

“Showing is also different in Canada. It is much more theatrical and more like exhibiting dairy cattle, with false tails and more aerosol sprays.”

However, while Ali believes farming in Canada is much more profitable, he’s not convinced that the cattle are any better than the best found in the UK.

“The top end of cattle, the stockmanship and the level of care are better in this country compared to over there but it has to be.

“The Canadians and the Amercians can afford to make mistakes because they have more ground, more cattle and make more money whereas UK farmers struggle to make any money at all,” he concluded.