Horticulture Students Rewarded

Success is flowering early for some of NI's top horticulture students.

Stormont Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew has praised award-winning local students who - although just starting out on their career - have already won national honours.

Two teams of Northern Ireland horticulture students have won prestigious UK Skills Landscape Gardening Competitions.

Held last month in England, both teams, from the Greenmount Campus of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), achieved first and second places in this competition in intermediate and advance levels.

The Minister congratulated the winners: "This is a fantastic achievement. These students have demonstrated exceptional organizational and landscaping skills, and have been wonderful ambassadors for both CAFRE and their community."

She also thanked the Department of Employment and Learning and Lantra - the industry body supporting skills, education and training for environmental and land-based industries - for their support to CAFRE and the two teams.

The teams had reached the regional finals via heats and then had to build a garden during just three days.

Their ability to work together and manage their resources was perfectly shown to execute the project, which was designed to test a wide range of hard and soft landscape skills, said the judges.

The Advanced Team, consisting Foundation Degree students Michael Clarke from Lurgan and James Cuffey from Crossgar, was joint first in the Skills Advanced Final, held at the Malvern Show, Worcestershire.

The Intermediate Team, which achieved second place in the Skills Intermediate Final at Windsor, comprised National Diploma students Stephen Robinson from Glarryford and Neil Bradley from Maghera.

Three of the four winning students (James, Stephen and Neil) are training for places on the team that will represent the UK in the Worldskills International Competition in London in 2011 - the last student does not fulfil the age requirement to apply for the place.

This international competition, which happens every two years, involves 50 countries, 40 competitions, 1,200 competitors and 250,000 spectators.

The horticulture sector is important, employing approximately 11,000 people in Northern Ireland alone, with over 5,000 of these being full-time in the amenity sector.

The employment opportunities are wide and varied, including garden centres, nurseries, golf courses, landscape companies and local authorities, horticulture therapy, education and training or self-employment.

(CL/BMcC)