CAFRE’s Education Advisor has said that despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has shone a spotlight on the variety of roles available and is giving students interested in agri-food the confidence to pursue future employment in the sector.
Liz Simpson was being interviewed by the broadcaster and farmer, Karen Patterson, for ABP’s Now We’re Talking Farming podcast for farming families which is available to watch or listen to now at the ABP Food Group website.
“The pandemic has profiled the diversity and the dynamics of the industry and the long-held careers that are there. There has been a confidence boost in people working in the land-based sector because of the recognition their roles have been getting from the wider public during the pandemic. Students are seeing the jobs that are available through the spotlight on key workers within agriculture, production and processing and in food retail. On the other side, I am regularly being contacted by agri-food companies looking for graduates and who are offering work placements during the past few months.”
Also taking part in Episode two of the podcast is Dr Andrew Bell the part-time beef farmer and Head of Biology at Belfast Royal Academy. Dr Bell is currently supervising a team of pupils in the 2020 ABP Angus Youth Challenge. B.R.A’s 2018 team made it onto the finalists’ skills development programme.
One of Dr Bell’s pupils, Lorcan Convery, won the ‘outstanding individual achievement award’ earlier this year along with Kelly Stewart from Rainey Endowed. Dr Bell said,
‘young people are growing up in a world of work that has shifted rapidly as a result of Covid-19 and that the ABP Angus Youth Challenge can equip them with skills and knowledge of what is expected of them and how they should interact in business.’
18-year old Lorcan Convery, who has no farming background, said he saw the competition as
‘something completely different and that could really help him.’
He has now applied to study business studies at university. His team’s assignment for the ABP Angus Youth Challenge was a city investment concept for beef farming and he said it ‘opened his mind to finance as a profession.’
The Loughry College graduate, and now ABP employee, Sarah Jane Houston, also features in the podcast. She shares her route to a job in the sector,
“My interest in food production was there from an early age having worked with livestock on the family farm.”
When asked what were her key stepping stones in to employment, she said,
“winning the first-ever ABP Student Bursary for Food Technology at Loughry Campus and then gaining work experience in retail before being offered a role as a Technical Supervisor at ABP Newry.”
The Podcast is available to watch/listen in to at www.abpfoodgroup.com/about-us/podcast/
