By Bronwyn Hastings

Mallee Machinery Field Days sites have long been booked, making for an informative and memorable event on the agricultural calendar.

Field days secretary Matt Brady said the event’s organisers – the Speed Lions Club – were excited.

“It’s looking really good. I think it’ll be one of the better field days we’ve had with numbers and exhibits. All the sites are full, so that’s good,” he said.

“We’ve spent a bit of money this year on infrastructure. We’ve spent it on the kitchen and we’re about to put in a new cool room for the catering shed as well. 

“Everything’s nice and green, a little bit wet at the bottom end of the site, but hopefully this dries out a little bit, otherwise I’ll have to do a bit of shuffling. 

“It’s probably the best outlook we’ve seen for a long time.”

Mr Brady said the interest from both prospective and potential exhibitors had increased.

“In the lead-up to the field days we normally have a few exhibitors drop off, say 20 or so, but we always get 20 new ones,” he said.

“This year I feel like we’ve had 15 or 20 drop off, but we’ve had 30 to 50 wanting to come in, which has made it a bit hard. 

“I can’t accept them all, just because we don’t have room to put them. 

“I think the people who used to have the smaller sites are trying to get bigger sites too, which is making it more complicated.

“But it’s really good – we can’t complain – we’re going to have a completely full site this year.”

Attractions

Mallee Machinery Field Days features new and established businesses of all sizes, who offer information and expert advice across a range of agri-business areas.

Sites include agricultural sales and machinery, banking and financial services, grain brokering and marketing, information technology, web and marketing, logistics and transport, petroleum, lifestyle, and retail.

This year, new products include header fronts, side-by-side vehicles, augers, ventilation systems, camping gear, loaders, mother bins and autonomous machinery.

Mr Brady said for the first time, the event would also feature working dogs.

“We’re really looking forward to that, it’s something different to see at the field days this year,” he said.

“I think we have a couple of locals entering, so that’ll be good.

“We’ve also got some new releases coming this year, and we are getting a lot more financial businesses coming in, as well as legal firms, different banks, grain buyers, and stuff like that.

“Our regular exhibitors are bringing bigger things every year, they’re not just bringing one truck, they’re bringing three or four, and I think that’s why they want bigger sites.”

Mr Brady said he had joked to a couple of committee members about buying a few more acres and making the site bigger.

“They just looked at me and said, ‘I think it’s big enough now for 25 blokes’,” he said.

“It could get bigger if we wanted, but we’ve got to cap it. We don’t have the manpower to keep pushing – but there are 38 new sites this year.”

All hands on deck

More than 20 volunteer groups contribute to the running of the field days, headed by Speed Lions Club.

“We’ve normally got about 20 to 25 volunteer groups, including sporting clubs, halls and schools, and they are from anywhere from Patchewollock, Hopetoun, Tempy and Sea Lake,” Mr Brady said.

“They do the catering, car-parking, and lots of things that we then don’t have to worry about – all up, I reckon there would be about 250 volunteers.”

The Lions club, contrary to most similar groups across country towns, has enjoyed an influx of new members.

“We’ve got another five or six young blokes who we’re hoping to sign up, which is really good for our numbers – we have about 23 at the moment,” Mr Brady said.

“We’ve got Sea Lake Lions down the road from us, they were going to close last year, and they were down to about four or five members, and just a couple of weeks ago they had a meeting and a bit of a revamp, and now they’ve got 25 members. 

“I reckon they went to a CFA meeting one night and picked them all out of there, but you have to cross groups over a little bit. 

“Their members are really good, they’re keen to help us – they’re building a few things for us at the moment, they’re doing a great job. 

“They’ve done really well to achieve what they have, that’s a credit to them.”

The entire July 29, 2026 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire July 29, 2026 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!