Yorke Peninsula Field Days


The Yorke Peninsula Field Days is a biennial, three-day field days event, held on a permanent site outside Paskeville on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. The event has a major focus on agriculture. The event is the oldest field days event in Australia and one of the biggest, exhibiting millions of dollars' worth of farm machinery.

Description

Nine local branches of the Agricultural Bureau of SA comprise the organising body of the Yorke Peninsula Field Days corporation and their members are totally responsible for the management and organisation of the field day. These bureaus are: Arthurton, Boors Plains, Bute, Cunliffe W.A.B., Moonta, Paskeville, Petersville, Snowtown and South Hummocks.
, there is a waiting list for exhibitors to get sites at the Field Days.
The event begins on a Tuesday in late September and finishes the following Thursday, opening at 9 am and closing at 5 pm each day. Annual events include sheepdog trials, guest-speakers, wool and sheep displays, including active and static displays, shearing demonstrations, a fashion parade, crafts, and general products which were introduced to the Field Days by the Cunliffe Women's Agricultural Bureau. An entrance fee is charged, and a record crowd of 40,000 people gathered for the 2009 field days.

History

The field days began in 1895 as a field trial of agricultural and horticultural implements. The original branches of the Agricultural Bureau of SA that formed the Agricultural Field Trial Society were Arthurton, Bute, Nantawarra, Paskeville, Pine Forest and Port Broughton. These branches organised the first Field Trial, as it was then known, at Bute. Until about 1973 only one event, 'Harvester Trials', was held.
From 1973, the Field Trials expanded to more than one day. In 1975 the current permanent site at Paskeville was established, after were purchased from Keith Lamming and Stan Norris for a total of $15,040 in 1977. The first field days event held at the Paskeville site in 1977 was opened by Sir Thomas Playford, former South Australian Premier. Permanent roads, and some permanent pavilions and sheds, have been built at the site, with the roads being named after the current and past bureaus of the Yorke Peninsula Field Days corporation.
No field days is planned in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dates