AUSTRALIA's oldest field days open its gates at Paskeville this week and attracted thousands of visitors to its biannual event, with organisers wrapped about the community's support.
With a buoyant season for croppers and graziers this year, the event's importance was as "great as ever", according to the Yorke Peninsula Field Days chief executive officer Peter Anderson.
"It has been a huge amount of work for a very long period of time - the limitations surrounding the event were big and at first, it was overwhelming," he said.
"The event sold out on Wednesday and it's a testament to the community supporting the event."
A number of interstate exhibitors were unable to attend the event, with border restrictions making the journey too difficult.
"Nonetheless, the amount of exhibitors that have gotten involved is brilliant," Mr Anderson said.
Former Kadina Mayor and state premier John Olsen officially opened the field days and thanked the committee for proceeding and getting the event across the line.
"It is very important that in society we continue to persist with normal life as much as possible while COVID-19 continues to impact communities," he said.
"The work that was done to submit a COVID plan was astounding."
Mr Olsen said the field days have provided the community with a sense of "normality".
"It was a great plus and what's more important is we have mental health issues in communities rising and the event has provided some social relief."
YPFD president Martin Kenny was elated that in his first term as president the event was a wonderful success.
After taking on the presidency in February 2020, Mr Kenny was pleased the biannual event was on track and dodged cancellation.
"We were lucky. But at the beginning of 2020 we thought we'd be out of the woods with COVID but it ramped up again," he said.
Visitor numbers have been "solid" coming through the gates, according to Mr Kenny, and most attendees were just "glad it was happening".
"SA Health were only going to allow 3000 visitors through the gate but got it increased to 5000," he said.
"The increase made it viable but the 3000 would not have been. At times we thought we were dealing with an impossible task."
The YPFD committee also handed out awards to exhibitors, including the best Australian made machine,won by Direct Seeding; best new release broadacre machine to Vater Machinery; best new release - open to Kingsway Welding; best outdoor site to Elders; and best farm machinery to New Holland.
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