mmg.com.au

After addressing a several hundred strong audience in Tongala on Wednesday morning entrepreneur Dick Smith visited St Patricks Primary School.

Mr Smith told students Australia grows the best food in the world and spoke to them about the importance of eating a healthy diet and supporting Australian farmers by eating food grown and produced in Australia.

He engaged the students in the discussion and asked if any of them live on farms and received several positive responses.

‘‘When I was your age, nearly all the food in Australia was grown in Australia by our farmers. But now over half our processed foods are imported from overseas,’’ he said.

He said Australia has to import some goods from other countries, including things like airplane parts, but said it was not right Australia should be importing so much processed food.

Mr Smith spoke of his adventures flying around the world, about opportunities in the future, the challenges of starting up a business and he asked the students if any of them hoped to have their own business in the future.

‘‘I started Dick Smith Electronics with $600. There were a lot of challenges and I made mistakes, but every time I made a mistake I tried to learn from it so that I didn’t make the same mistake again,’’ he said.

Mr Smith then answered a wide range of questions from students

‘‘I love coming to country towns. It’s so good to meet people from communities like this,’’ he said.

At the end of his talk Mr Smith was presented with a gift to mark his visit to the school.