Countryside College

Luke Norton is starting his second year studying equine management at the Enniskillen campus. Luke will get to play a huge role in the management of the horse breeding unit, with focus on preparation for the foal sales. Twenty-year-old Jack Graham from Ballymoney is in his second year at Loughry studying food technology, manufacturing and sciences. His class have been given 12 weeks to develop a new chicken product that is nutritious, allergen free, convenient and sustainably packaged. Leanne Green met Katie Acheson at Greenmount two years ago, and the final year students have become best friends. In October, the pair head off on a shopping spree to the autumn Stirling bull sales, where Leanne is hoping to buy the pedigree shorthorn heifer of her dreams.

The students return from their Christmas break. At the Enniskillen campus, well-known jockey and three times Cheltenham winner Derek O’Connor is visiting the equine students to share his top tips. We follow students Charlotte, Jack and Niall through the term, as the Spring Formal and St Patrick’s Day celebrations are followed by the outbreak of Covid-19. All campuses have to close with immediate effect, and the CAFRE students hurry home as the college gates close for the first time since World War Two.

It is the summer term, and the nation is in lockdown. CAFRE has had to close its gates for the first time since World War Two. College accommodation has been re-purposed for NHS staff and many of the students are classed as essential workers. 20-year-old Loughry food student Jack has a part-time job as a healthcare assistant. He is back home living with his family in Ballymoney and spends term three juggling online college work with frontline shifts on the Covid-19 wards at Antrim and Causeway Hospitals. Spring is normally boom time for garden centres, but just as everything is flowering at the Greenmount campus, horticulture student Niall Greene’s family nursery business in Armagh has had to close. It is now down to Niall and his father to keep the stock alive. College days have come to an abrupt end for final year agricultural students Leanne Green and Katie Acheson. They are classed as essential workers milking in a dairy farm in Dromore, Co Down. Equine student Luke Norton from Longford took the decision to stay on at his student house on his own in Enniskillen. He has a part-time job in a butchery, ensuring food gets to those most vulnerable in the community. He keeps on top of college work and is in regular contact with the lecturers by video link. Final-year agricultural student Jack Nevin hoped to graduate in June, but his college days have been cut short. He finds himself back working on the family dairy farm outside Portrush. The rural community also come together with Jack helping out on a sheep farm in Kells.