Farm Walk and Talk series for second levels students
Over 3,000 Leaving Cert Agricultural Science students from across Ireland will this spring don their wellies and take to the fields as part of Agri Aware’s Farm Walk and Talk series. Now in its 11th year this unique initiative has gone from strength to strength, in line with the ever-increasing popularity of Agricultural Science for the Leaving Certificate – with some 14% of leaving certificate students sitting the exam in 2018.
The aim of Agri Aware’s Farm Walk and Talk series is to demonstrate the practical elements of modern agriculture to second-level students preparing for their Leaving Certificate Agricultural Science exam. This event series is timely as we see major updates to the Agricultural Science course at second level for the first time in over 40 years. This new syllabus will be rolled out at Fifth Year level from September 2019. Agri Aware engaged extensively with stakeholders including Agri Aware’s patrons over several years to ensure the new specification was reflective and relevant of today’s agri food industry.
Speaking at this year’s launch Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creedsaid: “I am delighted to launch this year’s Agri Aware Farm Walk and Talk series. Society in general is becoming increasingly detached to the source of their food making the role of Agri Aware even more important today, and into the future. It is only through understanding the origin of food that people will value the role of farmers and the importance of this sector to Ireland. It is of particular importance that initiatives like this are run to communicate with a younger audience many of whom are looking to their future, and will indeed be sectoral leaders in years to come. I wish Agri Aware every success with the initiative.”