Four Offaly students bring home the beef at Ploughing '24

IT wasn’t a case of bringing home the bacon, but bringing home the beef for a group of students from St. Brendan’s Community School in Birr at the recent ploughing championships, as Jack O’Meara, Moya Guinan, Joseph McLoughney and Ben Younge left Ratheniska with five Certified Irish Angus calves.

The four students will now rear the calves over the next 18 months, while completing research projects focusing on different aspects of farming, the food chain, and sustainability.

The St. Brendan’s quartet earned their place at the National Ploughing Championships through a competition run by Certified Irish Angus in association with ABP and Kepak, which involved an interview process and then a presentation at Croke Park last Spring, where their subject - ‘Incremental changes yield significant improvements in sustainable beef production’ was of the five winners out of 43 entrants that made it to that stage of the competition.

Each finalist will receive the financial benefit of selling the animals to the processors upon the project’s completion. The winning students also receive an additional grant of €2,000 for their further education.

After meeting the four students at the National Ploughing Championships in her capacity as Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity, Offaly Senator Pippa Hackett spoke of how impressed she was with their work, and how it gave her huge hope for the future of Irish agriculture.

“There was clearly a lot of time and effort put into this by Jack, Moya, Joseph and Ben, but what impressed me even more was their innate understanding of the science and detail behind raising livestock that will yield the type of high quality beef that is synonymous with this country” said the Minister, who herself has an organic farm outside Geashill.

“We are still a rural country and I’d like to think that nobody needs reminding of the absolutely critical role that our farming community do to ensure Ireland’s food security and our overall health, but the work that goes into breeding, rearing and finishing livestock is far more technical and intense than many people realise.

“However I’ve been hugely impressed by what I’ve seen throughout this week here in Ratheniska, and particularly by these fantastic St. Brendan’s CS students, and I’d like to congratulate them on their success – as well as congratulating Jack on his victory in the Junior Novice Ploughing – and to say that the future of Irish farming is in very safe, capable hands”.