University College Cork (UCC) has won the 10th Great Agri-Food Debate, beating University College Dublin (UCD) in the final.

The winning UCC team proposed the motion that, “artificial Intelligence will create opportunities for farms to improve productivity sustainably and must be adopted as a matter of national policy”

The team from UCC included team captain Aoife Lynch from Callan in Co Kilkenny, co-speakers Anna Ryan (from Glenville in Co Cork), Apoorva Unde (Kilkenny City), Claudine Lynch (Ennis, Co Clare), and researcher Yuelin Zhan, who is from Beijing in China and studying Food Science and Technology.

ADVERTISEMENT

The four UCC speakers are all fourth year Nutritional Sciences students at UCC.

Susanna Kelly, a fourth year Food and Agribusiness Management student in UCD from Celbridge in Co Kildare, won the best speaker award in the final.

Her fellow team members were UCD team captain Fionn McDonnell, speakers Molly-Mai O’Meara, Amaia Garay and researchers Darragh Broderick and Aoishe Wycherley.

The semi-finals and the final of this year’s competition, sponsored by Dawn Meats and McDonald's were held in-person on Friday 27 February at SETU Arena in Co Waterford.

In total, seven teams across Ireland and the UK entered the highly popular competition.

Teams from University College Cork (UCC), University College Dublin (UCD), Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT), College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), Munster Technological University (MTU), Atlantic Technological University (ATU), and South East Technological University (SETU) faced off in Portlaoise in November 2025 to advance to the final.

Four universities progressed to the final – SETU, CAFRE, UCD and UCC.

UCD won in their semi-final versus CAFRE. The UCD team proposed the motion: “It is ethical to use high-quality agricultural land for solar energy farms”, while CAFRE opposed.

The final was judged by Richard Clinton, group commercial director of Dawn Meats, Jim Roynane, McDonald's restaurants franchisee, Phelim O'Neill, market intelligence and EU specialist at Irish Farmers Journal, Dale Crammond, director of Meat Industry Ireland, and Eimear Brazil, Chef and influencer (@TheKitchenShift_ on Instagram). The final was moderated by Tom Moran, chair at Kerry Group and Alliance New Zealand.

Richard Clinton said that this competition continues to be of great importance and value to Dawn Meats and McDonald.

"It’s a unique opportunity for us to meet and hear from the next generation of agri food leaders on the issues and challenges that are crucial to the future of our industry. The debates are always of a high standard and the commitment and hard work of the debaters, their researchers and their lecturers is always impressive. We take great pride in continuing this tradition and hope new voices will continue to be inspired to take part in the years to come. I’d like to congratulate everyone who took part this year and, of course, this year’s winning team, UCC. Many thanks to all involved, including the participants, judges and moderators, for making this event such a success.”