New Dawn as Tommy helps UCD to win
TOMMY Meade from Lobinstown - a former student at St Oliver’s CC - studying Food and Agri-Business Management in UCD helped the UCD debating team to The Great Agri-Food Debate title, sponsored by Dawn Meats and MacDonald’s in the Waterford IT Arena.
The competition has grown year on year previously only consisting of UCD and Waterford IT, the competition now caters for five of the major third level Food and Agricultural colleges with the introduction of Dundalk IT, Cork IT and UCC.
CEO of Dawn Meats Niall Browne announced the thought of expanding the competition into an All-Ireland competition, they hope to include some colleges and universities from Northern Ireland for 2019. It was live streamed on Dawn Meats YouTube channel.
The UCD team was captained by David O’Heany from Tipperary studying animal crop science. It also consisted of three other speakers, Tommy, Una Sinnott,Wexford, Owen Cashman from Cork.
The UCD team faced off against CIT captained by Avril O’Driscoll in the final on a very topical issue in agriculture and everything else, “Ireland Takes its Environmental Responsibilities and Commitments Seriously,” of which UCD had to propose the motion. They passed Dundalk IT captained by Siobhan Sweeney in the semi-final with another hot topic in agriculture “CAP is good value for money”.
The Great agri food debate was well attended by so many major businesses involved in Agriculture and gave a great opportunity for students not only to put it down on the CV but also to be remembered by some of the big names in agriculture.
The judging panel of 12 includeed industry leaders from Agri-Aware, AIB, Teagasc, finance, food safety, retail and agriculture such as Tara McCarthy, CEO Bord Bia; Ciaran Finegan, BWG Foods; Niall Browne, CEO, Dawn Meats; Pamela Byrne CEO, FSAI, and Peter Garbutt, agri manager, McDonald’s UK and Ireland. The final was moderated by Justin McCarthy, editor of the Irish Farmers Journal.
Interviewed afterwards by RTE1 countrywide, Tommy said “It’s a privilege to be in a competition like this, offering a great opportunity for students to talk in front of true leaders in the agri food sector.’ The UCD team get to hold onto the Great Agri-Food Debate trophy for the second year running and along with this have been invited over to England to see one of Dawn Meats biggest factories in the UK where they supply MacDonald’s burgers. Each member of UCD got €100 MacDonald’s vouchers.