Agriculture award for Tipp students
Ursuline Secondary School, Thurles, Leaving Certificate student Gráinne Callanan, was announced as recipient of the “Outstanding Individual Achievement” award at the final of the 2024 Certified Irish Schools Competition. The award recognises an individual’s contribution to their school group’s competition performance. Fellow students Evie Smyth, Rebekah Smith, Gráinne Callanan and Kaitlyn Ryan from Ursuline Secondary School congratulated their peer at the prestigious grand final in the Hogan Suite. The awards ceremony took place after students had successfully completed research projects and reared five Angus calves over an 18-month period.
Speaking about the award, the judges said: “Gráinne showed exceptional ability as a communicator. The judges were particularly impressed with her ability to speak confidently, and clearly to both her peers, and external organisation representatives. Most notable was her address to MEP’s in the European Parliament visit. Her ability to explain the disconnect between the data on farm accidents that exists between member states caught the attention of all attendees.”
The Tipperary students investigated the research topic of 'Health and Safety on Beef Farms'. The study focused on how they could create an educational programme to identify farm safety issues that was suitable for Primary School students.The programme contents involved creating a set of videos and developing an interactive quiz where children could be immersed in a working farm and learn about its operations before being asked to identify potential dangers that could be faced via the quiz.
The group also conducted a mental health survey aimed at the farming community, which highlighted that a large workload, long working hours, and rural isolation were highlighted as contributing factors to those surveyed for poor mental health at times.
The Certified Irish Angus Schools’ Competition in association with ABP and Kepak is an initiative that challenges students to rear five Irish Angus Cross calves for 18 months until their slaughter which aids their Leaving Certificate Agricultural Science curriculum. It aims to promote the Certified Irish Angus Beef brand while communicating the care and attention required to produce quality beef for consumers. Now in its tenth year, the competition continues to grow in popularity. In 2023, over 150 groups, over 520 students took part in the competition with 24 counties represented from all provinces.
Currently, farming industry experts are judging this year’s 43 shortlisted projects and will select five finalists from their biggest pool of shortlisted projects ever. The judges include representatives from right across the agri-food industry ABP, Kepak, Tesco, Bord Bia, Dromoland Castle, Dovea Genetics, O’Brien Fine Foods, IASTA, IFA and Macra na Feirme.
The five schools that best demonstrate an understanding of the project along with innovative ideas will be announced in September and will receive their calves at the National Ploughing Championships in September 2024. Each of the finalists receives the financial benefit involved in the selling of the animals to the processors on completion of the project which amounted to an average €7,500. The winning students also receive an additional grant of €2,000 for their further education.
For further information on the projects visit www.certifiedirishangus.ie/certified-irish-angus-schools-competition/