Events: Fairs: Junior Livestock Auction

Support for Junior Livestock Auctions

Riverside County Farm Bureau supports Junior Livestock Auctions to give agricultural students a market experience.

How an auction works

4-H, FFA, and Grange students raise animals as educational projects, keeping records and learning about the costs and challenges of producing food.

They show and sell their animals at the Junior Livestock Auctions, as part of a fair. Students use profits from auction sales to start their next animal projects and to save for college. Successful auctions encourage students to remain in agriculture.

Buyers have two options for purchase:

1. Many buyers buy for an animal for food. A local meat packer usually offers a package price to cut and wrap the meat for the buyer's freezer.

2. Other buyers support the auction through "Buy-Back." A meat packer guarantees to purchase all animals at a minimum "buy-back" price, usually a wholesale commercial price. Auction buyers usually bid prices that are higher this buy-back price, to support the students and to cover the higher costs of individually-raised animals. When an auction buyer bids on "buy-back," the meat packer pays his buy-back price and takes the animal, and the auction buyer pays the difference of the bid price above this buy-back price.

Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival
Indio

Southern California Fair
Lake Perris Fairgrounds, Perris

Riverside County Farm Bureau is a buyer and also sponsors an Auction Support Fund to support prices at the Junior Livestock Auction at the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival in Indio and the Southern California Fair in Perris.

We invite you to make a contribution of $25 or more. All money contributed to this Auction Support Fund will be used to buy animals at the Junior Livestock Auction. Your contribution will help maintain auction prices and benefit agricultural students.

Over the past seven years, Farm Bureau has funneled over $31,000 into the Date Festival auction, including nearly $13,000 from member donations. We would like to say thank you to all past supporters.

To contribute to the Auction Support Fund, make your check payable to Farm Bureau and mail it to Auction Support Fund, Riverside County Farm Bureau, 21160 Box Springs Road, #102, Moreno Valley, California 92557.

Donations are not tax deductible as charitable contributions but may be deductible as ordinary business expenses; consult your tax preparer. Your contribution will be greatly appreciated.

Colorado River Country Fair
Blythe

Riverside County Farm Bureau contributes to an auction support fund sponsored by local farmers and businesses.