There have been fresh calls to expand a French student placement programme that allows French students come to Ireland and work on farms. The programme is organised by agents Shandon Language Solutions (SLS) in Ireland and CLC Language Travel in France and places French students on Irish farms. The programme is in its fourth year in 2019.

So far, almost 80 students have participated in the initiative, with students coming from a number of French agricultural colleges since 2016. The 2019 edition of the scheme saw students selected from La Cazotte University, an agricultural college near Montpellier in the south of the country.

Labour

The point of the programme is to give students an opportunity to work on Irish farms. According to Paul Dolan of SLS, it also aids the shortage of labour that the agricultural sector is facing.

Dolan himself selects the farmers benefitting from the labour, with students placed all over Ireland. While the programme is not yet an exchange, he did not rule this out.