Watch: Students see agronomy in action with Frontier Agriculture

Posted 13 November 2023

Harper Adams students have been equipped with vital knowledge about agronomy – and an opportunity to get an industry foothold - thanks to leading crop production company Frontier Agriculture.

In total 120 students studying on the University’s BSc (Hons) Agriculture course visited a Frontier maize crop trial site near Market Drayton in Shropshire.
During their visit, the students heard more about Frontier Agriculture’s work, the people who do it – and why it makes a difference to arable farmers.

Among the people from Frontier they met were Commercial Manager Dai Morgan and recent Harper Adams alumni Harry Fletcher, from Admaston, who took up a graduate role as a trainee agronomist with Frontier after finishing his studies earlier this year.

 

Mr Morgan said: “Today we’ve had the opportunity to bring the Harper students along to our maize variety trial site, where we’ve shown them the latest technologies and maize varieties, and also nutrient sowing techniques and environmental areas around the crop.”

Students were shown three different sessions at the site – an introduction to maize, a near-infrared scanning session with Limagrain, and a demonstration with Frontier’s agronomists.

The day proved to be a hit and Louisa Dines, Principal Lecturer in Agronomy, said: “Myself, colleagues and the students would like to thank Frontier for hosting us.

“I have had some very positive feedback from students and despite the less-than-ideal weather conditions they evidently took on board a lot of information.

“The three stations on varied topics worked really well. As your ex-Harper colleagues can testify, it is a credit to those that spoke to manage to engage 120 Harper students on a Thursday!

“Experiences such as this are so valuable for enhancing their learning and I have since had two students wanting to change to the Ag Crops course from the Agriculture course as the trip has enthused them about crops.”

Speaking about why Frontier supports initiatives like this that bring students onto farms to see their crop trials work, Dai added: “It is really important for them to come and see what is happening out on the farm – a proper farming, practical farming situation to show them where we are heading for the future and what we’re doing to promote the latest technologies, and for them to get a feel about for what’s happening within the crop.”

Frontier Agriculture’s Recruitment team also spoke with the students to highlight some of the many vacancies and work placements available at Frontier - including a number of placement opportunities open to Harper Adams students.

More information on these can be found on the Frontier site here – search keyword ‘placement' - with the closing date for applications November 19.