Stephanie Woods, Lecturer, Greenmount Campus, CAFRE

Agriculture Minister Jeff Rooker has visited Greenmount Campus to learn about a student led Enterprise Management project at CAFRE’s Greenmount Campus. This unique learning by doing project within the Higher Education programmes at Greenmount involves students managing all aspects of CAFRE’s CREAM dairy herd. Dr Stephanie Woods, programme coordinator of the CREAM project explained that an advisory board comprising industry leaders is available to guide the student’s management decisions. Stephanie said: “There is no doubt that the Enterprise Management component of the two programmes enhances the learning experience. In the short term it prepares students for work placement and in the long term it empowers today’s students to become tomorrows industry leaders”.

This learning by doing project, has been running at Greenmount Campus since 1994 and forms a key element in the HND Agriculture (milk production) and BSc Agricultural Technology courses. The project allows students with an interest in milk production to manage a high genetic merit dairy enterprise. This herd is one of the top recorded herds in Northern Ireland and was the regional winner of the 1999 BOCM-Pauls Premier Performance Herd award. More recently the CREAM herd topped its class in the 2003 Holstein NI herds production competition.