Students are getting ready for this year’s Agricultural Colleges Challenges Day to be hosted by Clonakilty Agricultural College in Cork on Wednesday, February 12.
The event’s challenges are based around leadership and teamwork with a variety of competitions including indoor soccer, fencing, and tractor driving as well as many others.
Twelve students from six other agricultural colleges will compete against each other. The colleges taking part include:
- Kildalton Agricultural College, Co. Kilkenny;
- Mount Bellew Agricultural College, Co. Galway;
- Ballyhaise Agricultural College, Co. Cavan;
- Gurteen Agricultural College, Co. Tipperary;
- Botanic Gardens College of Horticulture, Co. Dublin;
- Salesian Agricultural College, Co. Limerick.
Head of education at Teagasc, Anne-Marie Butler said, ”Macra Challenges Day is a highlight of the academic year for all our learners and colleges.
”It’s great to see college teams working together, applying their knowledge and skills across a number of challenges and most importantly having fun.”
Challenge Day
There will be a Farm Business and Technology award at this year’s Macra Challenges Day for the fourth year in a row, sponsored by National Broadcast Ireland (NBI).
This year’s task is to research and identify areas at risk of water pollution and use online research to find multiple options for pollution prevention and choose a course of action.
NBI’s head of corporate communications, Niall Beirne said: “Central to the challenge will be the students’ use of the internet to research the problem, to identify multiple options for pollution prevention and to select a specific course of action.
“The competition is a nice reminder of how the work we are doing at NBI enables the sustainable development of farms”.
In 2024 three students from Kildalton college, where last year’s Challenges Day was hosted, took first place in the Farm Business and Technology award.
The FRS Memorial Scholarship will also return this year with one student from each college presenting on ‘Leadership in Sustainability’.
Head of operations at FRS Farm Services, Colette McInerny said: ”FRS Co-Op is honoured to sponsor the challenge day and to present the FRS Memorial Scholarship, which serves as a tribute to our valued past colleagues and friends of FRS Co-Op”.
The winner of this scholarship will receive a scholarship of a three-month work placement in an FRS office.