My Experience as a Farming Connect Intern

Hello! I’m Chloe Giles, and I’m currently studying Agriculture and Business Management at Aberystwyth University. I’m my father’s daughter, so my biggest interests growing up were cars and watching rallies. I don’t have a farming background, but I do have pets, dogs, chickens and a cat. When I was 12 years old, I bought four pet lambs and loved them. I’ve always enjoyed going to the Royal Welsh Show and walking around every shed to look at all the animals. When I began university, I knew of some jobs that appealed to me as a career, but working for Mentera has opened my eyes and made me realise that there are so many more jobs in the field that I wasn’t even aware of.

What attracted you to this opportunity?

I saw the opportunity to be an intern on social media first, then some of my friends sent it to me because they knew I wanted to get more experience in the field. I read the job description several times and decided to apply and wait to see where I would go from there. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself as I didn’t have a lot of experience or background. When I got the email saying that I had been shortlisted and was being offered an interview, I was so proud of myself and excited about this opportunity. On the day of the interview, I was really nervous, but the interview lasted about 15–20 minutes, which wasn’t too long, but I doubted myself all weekend and was worried that I’d done terribly. Then, first thing on Monday morning, I had the best news to wake to ... an email offering me one of the two jobs available! The best feeling ever!

What were you hoping to learn/gain from the opportunity?

As someone with no farming background, I had a lot to learn about all aspects of agriculture. I was looking forward to learning about the different Farming Connect projects – for example, the ‘herbal lay’ project. I also wanted to understand the services that Welsh farmers have access to and how much work and organising is done to help each farmer. On top of all this, I wanted to get some sort of idea of the different jobs available in the agriculture industry to help me decide which path to take after university.

What opportunities have you had during the internship?

Every week is different with the Farming Connect programme! On Monday, I’d be out on a farm collecting FEC samples in order to send them for testing. Tuesday would be an office day and completing some tasks for different people from the programme – for example, contacting farmers to invite them to various events across Wales. On Wednesdays, I could be back out on a farm weighing lambs and taking FEC samples again, and dosing and dividing the lambs into different groups depending on their weight so that they’re ready to go to the herbal ley. After weighing the lambs, I’d go to the herbal ley itself and do some cutting and weighing. On Thursday, another day on a farm, and on this day, I’d learn something completely new – like backfat scanning lambs and inputting the data into spreadsheets. Then to finish the week, a lovely day off on Friday.

What have you gained from the internship?

From this experience, I’ve gained a greater understanding of many farming practices. For example, many of the projects were about the different seeds that are used to over-seed herbal leys, and their advantages and disadvantages. I had already learned about this at university but didn’t really understand the subject until the summer when everything I had learned was put into practice on a day-to-day basis. Also, I learned about soils and what different fertilisers do to them and their environmental impacts. I’ve also learnt about alternative fertilisers such as seaweed-based fertilisers which are very beneficial to the soil, and this is again thanks to the various projects provided by the Farming Connect programme. As I’ve already mentioned, I spent a day learning how to support the process of backfat scanning which was a great experience to see different variations in one flock!

Would you suggest this opportunity to someone else? If so, why?

I would highly recommend this opportunity. It has given me an insight into the hard work that’s done by the Farming Connect programme – working with farmers and trying to find the best way to help them make improvements on their farms. Working with farmers has shown me that all farms have challenges in one way or another, but by getting the best advice from the Farming Connect programme, they are happy to improve.