The impressive Deirdre O’Shea has been appointed the new executive director with AgriAware.

O’Shea has most recently served as IFA’s pig committee executive and steered the committee throughout a particularly turbulent period.

A graduate of UCD and from a pig farm in Co Laois, O’Shea takes over from Dr Vanessa Woods who is moving on to look after the communications side of things with Devenish. I’m reliably informed that O’Shea held off some seriously big hitters to take the job.

AgriAware was set up after the BSE crisis in 1996 and the educational and promotional body has done Trojan work in changing the perception of Irish farmers and food since then.