UCD School of Agriculture & Food Science

Minister launches tertiary degree in Ag Science Students can study locally for the first year with no fees....

Three of our Animal and Crop Production students; Sean Adam’s, Jimmy Hoey and Daniel Crehan are currently on an adventure across America and Canada - a working adventure, getting incredible hands on insight and experience to working on farms and in industry and comparing Ireland to other systems, scale and practices.

“We are currently doing our 30 weeks of PWE. We have just completed 16 weeks of Dairy at Emerald Dairies in Missouri USA. Niall Murphy from Cork set up Emerald Dairies in 2010 and now it consists of 3 farms and over 1000 cows all located within an hour of one another.

We travelled to America on the 19th of January where we went to the Ohio state university in Colombus Ohio for a one-day orientation before flying to Springfield Missouri. When we arrived calving just started and we were out calving at nighttime in -20°C this was a great challenge to keep the newborn calves alive as all calving takes place outside.

As the Spring arrived the weather improved and a focus moved to grazing. High emphasis was placed on the growth of clover which had to be managed by regular checks and supplementation of alfalfa with the risk of bloat. Cows were strip grazed in paddocks with a big effort in reducing grass wastage with regular grass measuring taking place.

During breeding all cows and heifers that are on a farm with contract rearers were synchronised an inseminated with jersey and Holstein semen with jersey stock bulls introduced the following day to clean up.

Our next placements take us to Canada for pigs and Tennessee for crops which is something we are really looking forward too.

Doing PWE abroad has been a great way to see the differences and opportunities in different places, and we would strongly advise all students to consider doing at least one of there placements outside of Ireland”

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, James Lawless, visited Louth & Meath ETB (LMETB) to officially launch a new Tertiary Degree in Agricultural Science.

The BAgrSc (Hons) is the latest addition to the Tertiary Degree Programme for the 2026/27 academic year, offering an innovative pathway into one of Ireland’s most important sectors.

The programme enables students to complete their first year at Dunboyne College of Further Education before progressing to the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science to complete the remaining four years of the Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Honours) degree. It provides an alternative route to higher education that removes traditional CAO points barriers, while maintaining the same academic standards and graduate outcomes as the direct-entry programme.

Read more about the new programme:
https://www.ucd.ie/agfood/newsandevents/news/recentnews2026/dunboynecollegeanducdlaunchinnovativetertiarydegreeinagriculturalscienceattheheartoftheboynevalley/

Animal science student Joe Doody sets the bar at the UCD Bears meet last weekend in Belfield.
Joe is an international U23 sprinter and UCD Sports scholar. Hopefully the weather picks up and looking forward to an exciting summer of racing ahead.

Brilliant pics as always by GMU.photography 📸

Brilliant snaps of Rachel O'Reilly from last weekends Assoc of Irish Riding Clubs Festival in Mullingar Equestrian mullingar_equestrian 🐴

Well it was an absolutely crazy weekend GAA across the country!
As usual we were delighted to see UCD student and alumni names pop up on many panels and shine for their respective counties.
The hurling was the main focus and we are thrilled for Dairy Business student Padraig Rafter and ACP student Joe Pearson who was part of the winning squad who lifted the Joe McDonagh Cup beating Carlow 1-17 to 1-18.

Galway’s Michael Power was part of the Galway squad who had a very convincing win over the Dubs as they win their first Leinster SHC title since 2018 on Saturday.

Ciaran Jennings is a 3rd year animal and crop production student and has just finished his professional work experience in a number of exciting locations across the UK and the Netherlands. Ciaran gives a great insight into PWE, the differences in farming abroad and all he learned while on placement 🐄

“As part of my Professional Work Experience I decided to take the opportunity to spend some time abroad,

I spent the last 6 weeks in the Netherlands at the “Dairy Campus” an innovation and research centre located in the province of Friesland. I heard about the Dairy Campus through speaking to past UCD students who have previously completed placement at the farm. It is linked to the Wageningen University which is the number 1 agricultural university globally so there is research projects being carried out on the farm all year around. The farm has 500 cows, 6 research cowsheds and 300 hectares of land.
During my time here I got a great insight into cutting edge technology for example the Lely Exos and the Trioliet German feed system that are being used on the farm as well as being involved in ongoing research trials such as micro biome methane screening, various feed trials and methane reduction strategies. Other daily tasks included milking and feeding calves.

Everyone working on the farm was very welcoming which helped me settle in quickly. I would encourage anyone about to undertake PWE to go outside their comfort zone and travel as it is an eye opening experience where you will learn so much about different farming systems and practices and make friends and connections that will last a lifetime.

Before travelling to the Netherlands I first spent 5 weeks in Berwick upon tweed in England for my sheep placement along with two lads also doing Animal and Crop Production. The Whittens farm 2,500 acres of which they own 375 acres, we were given great responsibility and put in charge of lambing the 1200 Mule and Suffolk ewes all indoors. It was hands on for the few weeks but was great to experience such a large scale system.”

Best of luck to Equine Science student Amelia McCarthy who joins in Switzerland for the 🐎