In the lead up to the 2019 Teagasc Moorepark Open Day, an exciting photo competition was run inviting social media users across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to post a photo illustrating what they love about Irish dairying, using the #thisisdairying and #Moorepark19 hashtags. The Moorepark Open Day is a biannual event outlining research on all aspects of dairy farming including grassland management, animal genetics, animal health, farm business management, farm infrastructure and health and safety. The theme of this year’s event was ‘growing sustainably’.
The purpose of the competition was to encourage farmers to share positive images of what they love about dairy farming on social media to show the many reasons why dairy farming is an attractive career. Over 300 entries were received with the top ten entries shortlisted and the overall winner announced at the event; a selection of photographs were also displayed. This competition was run by Teagasc and the NEFERTITI project.
Speaking about the competition, one of the organisers Paidi Kelly from Teagasc said: “We were thrilled with how people engaged with the competition. The most important people who promote farming as a career are current farmers and they really got behind the competition by sharing positive pictures of what they do. More of these initiatives would help educate the public about all the good farmers do and help encourage more people to consider farming as a career.”
Overall winner of the competition Tina Dolan-Boylan pictured here receiving her prize from Paidi Kelly and Redmond McEvoy of Teagasc.
The full range of papers and boards presented in the People Farming Smarter village on the day can be accessed here; https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/moorepark/moorepark19/people-farming-smarter/
The Horizon 2020 NEFERTITI project was a stakeholder in this competition. The project “Networking European Farms to Enhance Cross Fertilisation and Innovation Uptake Through demonstration” (NEFERTITI) is a unique Network (selected under Programme Horizon 2020) comprising 32 partners and coordinated by ACTA, the head of Network of the French Agricultural Technical Institutes. The project duration is 4 years and it will finish on the 31st December 2021. The overall objective of NEFERTITI is to establish an EU-wide highly connected network of well-specified demonstration and pilot farms designed to enhance knowledge exchanges, cross fertilisation among actors and efficient innovation uptake in the farming sector through peer-to-peer demonstration of techniques to be organised by themes. 10 interactive thematic networks are being created, bringing together 45 regional clusters (hubs) of demo-farmers and actors involved (advisors, NGOs, industry, education, researchers and policy makers) in 17 countries. Additional information could be found on the project website: www.nefertiti-h2020.eu. Follow us on social media; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NEFERTITI.EU/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEFERTITI_EU
Further information on the NEFERTITI project is available from the Irish Hub contact:
John Moriarty | Email: john.moriarty@teagasc.ie | Tel: 02542275
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