Have you got what it takes to be a rural leader, an innovator or entrepreneur?

Have you got what it takes to be a rural leader, an innovator or entrepreneur?

Farming Connect’s recruitment campaign for the 2019 intake of Agri Academy candidates is open!

Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, officially launched Agri Academy 2019, at the Farmers’ Union of Wales annual farmhouse breakfast at Cardiff Bay on January the 22nd.

The Agri Academy, now in its seventh year and with 200 alumni, brings together some of the most promising people making their way in the agricultural industry in Wales today.

Comprising three distinct elements, the Agri Academy’s Rural Leadership programme, a collaboration with the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, aims to develop and nurture a new generation of leaders. The Business and Innovation programme offers personal and business development to help meet the challenges of farming in the future, while the Junior Academy, run in partnership with Wales YFC, is targeted at youngsters aged 16-19 considering a career in the food and farming industries.

Here is what one of our alumni had to say about their Agri Academy experience:

Branwen Miles, Rural Leadership Programme 2017

Welsh and French speaker Branwen Miles (25) is a graduate of the Rural Leadership Programme in 2017.  She was recently appointed to the role of Project Officer at the European Landowners Organisation in Brussels. It’s a post which involves her visiting rural areas throughout Europe to promote a range of European funded projects relating to agriculture, the environment and rural development.

Branwen grew up on her family’s 310 acre organic dairy farm near Haverfordwest, where her parents, who are first generation farmers, had moved from Ceredigion in the late 90s. She loves going home and enjoys helping out with the family’s herd of 120 cows and takes a keen interest in the family’s plan to convert to robotic milking. Her father Dai was one of the Agri Academy’s first intake of students and a persuasive advocate when Branwen first mentioned applying!

Branwen, who worked as a policy adviser with CLA Wales before her current post, read international politics and French at Aberystwyth University, which involved spending a year studying in Strasbourg and says it was always her dream to work overseas.