In September 2017 five secondary schools across Ireland were selected by the agri-industry to rear calves as part of the fifth national Certified Irish Angus Beef schools competition. Run by the Irish Angus Producer Group (APG), in conjunction with ABP Ireland and the Kepak Group, the overall winners of the competition will be announced in March 2019.

Amongst the final groups are four students from Ashbourne Community School, Co Meath. Hannah Keogh, Kellie Ward, Ella Smyth and David Corry. After qualifying through a number of rounds, the students were awarded with the challenge of rearing five Irish Angus cross calves for 18 months until their slaughter, on Monday 12 November last.

Speaking on behalf of The Green Team, Hannah Keogh reminisces on what began as a TY project, but developed into something much more impacting, “Ag science wouldn’t be the most popular subject in our school, but the ag science teacher, Mr Gibney, told us about the competition in assembly one day and revealed that the prize was five Angus calves. The four of us were immediately interested. Myself and David are from farming backgrounds, while the other girls aren’t, but have a great interest in where their food comes from. It worked out very well because we had a good balance between both the farmer’s and consumer’s perspective.”

Husbandry

“The calves were kept on David’s home dairy farm. We went out regularly, to weigh them, keeping track of their daily weight gain. We were so lucky that David’s dad kept them for us, but we all dug in and got our hands dirty with dosing and anything that needed to be done. It is great for our Leaving Cert ag science too, because we can incorporate this research and findings into our projects,” Hannah said.

“Our theme was to promote the benefits of grass-based Angus cattle production to dairy farmers in our area. Ireland is at the perfect latitude to sustain grass-based systems, plus over 80% of the country is covered in grass. We combined that with the suitability of Angus, which are well-suited to the Irish climate, grazing up to 300 days of the year,” she continued.

“By buying grass-fed Irish Angus beef you know exactly where everything is coming from. So, through these combined factors we promoted the grass-fed Irish Angus beef sector.”

Public opinion

“We used social media to keep everyone updated on our project, but also to promote the benefits of eating Irish Angus beef. We went to the Meath IFA meeting back in March and they were both surprised and impressed by the standard of the competitors. We also attended an Agri Aware open day.

“That is where we realised that there are people out there who really aren’t impressed with what we are doing; promoting beef consumption and artificial insemination. But we dealt with that as best as we can. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. It really opened our eyes. Kepak, APG and ABP made this possible for us. The whole experience taught us about the beef industry in Ireland and the Netherlands, where we visited last February. We learned about the whole process from farm to fork; product development, sales and marketing, food testing, traceability and procurement, as well as the practical rearing of animals up until factory day.

“We were really happy with the way they finished off, three of which graded an O and two as R. All the money made will go to the Irish Cancer Society,” Hannah reports. “The competition is open to all TY students nationwide. Whether or not students study ag science, come from a farming, or rural background, they can enter. If the interest is there why not just go for it?”