Last chance to apply for this fantastic pig industry scholarship opportunity with ABN.

Paid placement salary of £16500 and up to £9k towards tuition fees!

Combine hands-on farm experience with extensive learning about the commercial aspects of working for a large national animal feed company.

You will spend 6 months at Ermine Farms in Lincolnshire involved with day to day operations of a commercial pig farm, followed by 6 months with at the ABN Head Office in Peterborough.

ABN is a pig and poultry feed company. ABN’s expert nutritionists and pig sales Account Managers play a key role in researching, developing, selling and advising across a market-leading product range. This includes feed materials, feed additives, pre-mixes and compound feed such as specialist piglet starter feed.

You can expect your placement to include all of these areas as well as valuable time spent ‘on farm’ gaining a real hands-on experience, such as learning practical pig skills, understanding farm routines, targets and actual production levels. During your time you will be assigned objectives to help you build your pig industry knowledge and key business competencies. You will receive nutritional training and valuable exposure to the pig industry.

Pictured left at the recent Scholarship Fair is Kelly Hoodless, a former Pig Industry and ABN scholar. For her placement she worked for AB Agri where she specialised in pig nutrition, providing her with the concept for her honours research project.

Kelly graduated from Harper Adams University with a first class honours BSc Animal Science degree and has secured a job at AB Nutrition as a key account manager.

Kelly described her placement experience and told us how she’s finding working for ABN:

How would you sum up your experience with the placement?

“The fact that this is a split placement really appealed to me and was the main reason why I chose to apply. I gained first-hand experience with pig farm operations as well as invaluable technical knowledge. To have the opportunity to apply what I learnt on the farm in a commercial setting was priceless.”

What does the future hold for you now?

“The pig industry is fast moving and progressive, it is constantly changing therefore challenges are continually arising. I enjoy problem solving and learning new things, so to be offered a job with a national pig feed company is very exciting and I look forward to what the future holds. The placement gave me a good understanding of what career path I wanted to go down when I graduated and I was fortunate to be given the opportunity.”

During your time you will be assigned objectives to help you build your pig industry knowledge and key business competencies. You will receive nutritional training and valuable exposure to the pig industry.

Activities are likely to include:-

• Practical hands-on, on farm experience for the first half of the scholarship programme. Involvement in the daily/weekly routines of ‘on farm’ pig unit management
• Implementing pig trials
• Participating in technical input to marketing literature, company events and websites
• Developing and formulating products
• Offering technical advice and support to customers
• Quality assurance tasks
• Raw material evaluation
• Research and reviews

The placement is provided as part of the Pig Industry Scholarship scheme launched at Harper Adams University by the NPA Allied Industry Group to recruit highly qualified and committed young entrants into the pig industry. The scheme which includes a paid placement year is open to second year BSc and first year FdSc students studying at Harper Adams and are interested in a career in the pig industry.  A scholarship of £4500 is paid in the second year with potential further scholarship of £4,500 in the final year, subject to review after placement period.

Don't miss out!  Applications for the Pig Industry Scholarship Scheme must be submitted electronically no later than 12 noon on Friday 10 November

When you are ready to submit your application please do so through your student dashboard

https://www.harper-adams.ac.uk/students/s/login.cfm

Support is always available from the Placement Office and your Placement Manager.