Greencert Students?

kevthegaff

Lads i was thinking of taking on a student to help out at calving next year, is it sewn up among lads in the "know" or is it just a matter of some paperwork

Greengrass1

kevthegaff wrote: »

Lads i was thinking of taking on a student to help out at calving next year, is it sewn up among lads in the "know" or is it just a matter of some paperwork

See there's so much lads looking for them it will be hard to get one.
The only way would be to send in an application and if you know a young lad near you that's heading to do greencert see if he wants to do his placement with you.
Then all student has to say when asked that he wants to go to you and no one else

cormywormy

Greengrass1 wrote: »

See there's so much lads looking for them it will be hard to get one.
The only way would be to send in an application and if you know a young lad near you that's heading to do greencert see if he wants to do his placement with you.
Then all student has to say when asked that he wants to go to you and no one else

It would be grand if it was as easy as that. There is a very big waiting list to be a host farmer for students. I will PM the OP details of who to get onto , but i wouldnt hold hope out of getting one next year, as if your not on the list a student cant say who he wants.

Conor556

cormywormy wrote: »

It would be grand if it was as easy as that. There is a very big waiting list to be a host farmer for students. I will PM the OP details of who to get onto , but i wouldnt hold hope out of getting one next year, as if your not on the list a student cant say who he wants.

Yes they can,, no guarantee you will get him but they will try to sort you out as best they can

Greengrass1

Conor556 wrote: »

Yes they can,, no guarantee you will get him but they will try to sort you out as best they can

Yep.
Lots of lads in Kildalton with me did it

Deepsouthwest

Greengrass1 wrote: »

See there's so much lads looking for them it will be hard to get one.
The only way would be to send in an application and if you know a young lad near you that's heading to do greencert see if he wants to do his placement with you.
Then all student has to say when asked that he wants to go to you and no one else

That just sounds a bit irish to me. Surely it would be more beneficial to the student to work for a farmer he didn't know, rather than a pal who he can sort out his hrs, paperwork etc without ever actually learning something from the whole exercise

freedominacup

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

That just sounds a bit irish to me. Surely it would be more beneficial to the student to work for a farmer he didn't know, rather than a pal who he can sort out his hrs, paperwork etc without ever actually learning something from the whole exercise

Based on my own experience I'd be very skeptical about how much any student "learns" on work experience. I did placements on two farms and it was plenty of drudgery with very few learning opportunities. The second guy was sound enough but I spent a lot of time cleaning cubicles and spreading slurry both of which I could do at home anytime. First place was a nightmare. 300 cows indoors full time, old kennel cubicles and open yards all scraped twice a day with a 135. 10 unit double up with manual id and every cow on a different feed level. Three minutes of instructions on the running of it and a bollocking for any numbers not inputted correctly. Pure slavery.

Greengrass1

freedominacup wrote: »

Based on my own experience I'd be very skeptical about how much any student "learns" on work experience. I did placements on two farms and it was plenty of drudgery with very few learning opportunities. The second guy was sound enough but I spent a lot of time cleaning cubicles and spreading slurry both of which I could do at home anytime. First place was a nightmare. 300 cows indoors full time, old kennel cubicles and open yards all scraped twice a day with a 135. 10 unit double up with manual id and every cow on a different feed level. Three minutes of instructions on the running of it and a bollocking for any numbers not inputted correctly. Pure slavery.

The lads in my course that chose there placement went to better farms than I did and learner more.
1st placement I went to had 80 cows 8 unit parlour kept all the bullocks and a hundred acres of barley.
Hated it.
Spent all day feeding and wouldn't be home till 9
Second lad was a gent.. Still in contact with him
He basicly just told me how he ran things and let me off.
Went to nz then and just did the usual milking and fencing and calving cows.
Was a very good experience.

Main thing is about ag college is that if your interested you learn a lot and meet lifetime friends and have the craic.

KeV if your getting a student don't just gave him working all the time on his own.
Get to know him/her and give them good details about your farm and how it's ran.
Nothing worse than spending 4 months in a spot and all ye feel like is a slave to him

cormywormy

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Yep.
Lots of lads in Kildalton with me did it

yeah, generally at the start your not asked. But if time or farmers tight then be taken into consideration because at the end of the day it is not up to the student to decide!

trixi2011

Greengrass1 wrote: »

The lads in my course that chose there placement went to better farms than I did and learner more.
1st placement I went to had 80 cows 8 unit parlour kept all the bullocks and a hundred acres of barley.
Hated it.
Spent all day feeding and wouldn't be home till 9
Second lad was a gent.. Still in contact with him
He basicly just told me how he ran things and let me off.
Went to nz then and just did the usual milking and fencing and calving cows.
Was a very good experience.

Main thing is about ag college is that if your interested you learn a lot and meet lifetime friends and have the craic.

KeV if your getting a student don't just gave him working all the time on his own.
Get to know him/her and give them good details about your farm and how it's ran.
Nothing worse than spending 4 months in a spot and all ye feel like is a slave to him

were did you work in nz greengrass ?

whelan2

i have given up looking to get a student,as i said before most of the people i know around here who have students are pricks , so that must be in the criteria:D

kevthegaff

agree whelan heard of ads paying terrible with long hours, pure takin the p""s. im the opposite, treat them well cos i know how it feels!

whelan2

kevthegaff wrote: »

agree whelan heard of ads paying terrible with long hours, pure takin the p""s. im the opposite, treat them well cos i know how it feels!

i would be the same but it seems to be the same old crowd who always get the students

Mulumpy

I was lucky I got my placement with a top dairy guy in south tipp milking 90 cows. Brought me different places with him and signed the two of us up for different courses during my time there. Still in contact with him

Greengrass1

trixi2011 wrote: »

were did you work in nz greengrass ?

Rakia. Just out side ashburton

Deepsouthwest

kevthegaff wrote: »

agree whelan heard of ads paying terrible with long hours, pure takin the p""s. im the opposite, treat them well cos i know how it feels!

Think they're is a huge waiting list, about 600 on it I think. The problem with getting on it is trying to explain to guys that have been getting students for the last 30 yrs that they're not getting them anymore. I argued while I was waiting on the list that the age profile of a lot of the host farmers needs to be cut, a lot of host farmers are a generation older than the students and some even two generations older, hard for the students to make a connection with some of those guys

C0N0R

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Rakia. Just out side ashburton

You didn't play football for Rakaia while you were here did ya?! How long ago was it you were here again?

Henwin

should the students be able to hand in reviews of the farm after they do their placement. if a farmer has too many negative votes then the farmer is not allowed take on students in the future- cud weed out ole fe*kers

Greengrass1

C0N0R wrote: »

You didn't play football for Rakaia while you were here did ya?! How long ago was it you were here again?

Nah never bothered tbh.
Near 14 months ago now since I came back home.
Autumn 2012 when I went.

Greengrass1

Henwin wrote: »

should the students be able to hand in reviews of the farm after they do their placement. if a farmer has too many negative votes then the farmer is not allowed take on students in the future- cud weed out ole fe*kers

Yep that's what happens as it is. But lads just pull there socks up then and get away the next year.

Like a friend of mine who did the drystck course.
On his first placement mist if his week was spent gardening and one day your man asked him to paint the stumps of ferrs and he left
Your man got a student the next year again

GrandSoftDay

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Yep that's what happens as it is. But lads just pull there socks up then and get away the next year.

Like a friend of mine who did the drystck course.
On his first placement mist if his week was spent gardening and one day your man asked him to paint the stumps of ferrs and he left
Your man got a student the next year again

That's a joke . I thought the farmer had to be over 12 miles from the student. I asked for the farmer I did mine with because he was a suckler man and I didn't want to spend 3 months pulling tits when it had nothing to do with our system. Very hard to find a suckler farmer taking on students and I wouldn't have got it only for a lad I knew was with him the year before. Good operator and I learned a lot there.

whelan2

the first time i rang looking to take a student they sounded very interested as the had very few liquid milk farmers in the area, after that they said they had enough farmers:cool:

Deepsouthwest

whelan2 wrote: »

the first time i rang looking to take a student they sounded very interested as the had very few liquid milk farmers in the area, after that they said they had enough farmers:cool:

Maybe that was the polite way of saying u weren't suitable!!!

whelan2

I would love to know what suitable is

Panch18

A couple of things I would say

• It seems to me that for every bad host farmer there is a bad student who will do f### all work and have little or no interest
• It is the norm in most industries when you have collage placement students who are wet behind the ears on hand for 3 months that they do the crap work, or just make the tea. Very few gain worthwhile experience in 3 months - apart from how the work environment operates - hell even graduates in their first few years out of Uni can still get all the crap work and plenty of it to boot e.g. solicitors, accountants
• While no student should be exclusively doing the calves or scraping sh#t - these are still part of the job of being a dairy farmer so plenty of exposure to them is no harm

Of course nobody should be treated like a slave but getting all the crap work as a 3 month work experience placement is not exclusive to farming I'm afraid

Deepsouthwest

Panch18 wrote: »

A couple of things I would say

• It seems to me that for every bad host farmer there is a bad student who will do f### all work and have little or no interest
• It is the norm in most industries when you have collage placement students who are wet behind the ears on hand for 3 months that they do the crap work, or just make the tea. Very few gain worthwhile experience in 3 months - apart from how the work environment operates - hell even graduates in their first few years out of Uni can still get all the crap work and plenty of it to boot e.g. solicitors, accountants
• While no student should be exclusively doing the calves or scraping sh#t - these are still part of the job of being a dairy farmer so plenty of exposure to them is no harm

Of course nobody should be treated like a slave but getting all the crap work as a 3 month work experience placement is not exclusive to farming I'm afraid

Someone posted earlier that they spent a lot of there 3 mths spreading slurry,scrapping and liming cubicles, bedding calves etc, work they said they could've done at home. But if u come from a dairy farm and do ur 3 mths on a dairy farm then of course a lot of the jobs will be the same, how could it be any other way, but the idea of doing ur placement is u just might find a better/faster/ different way of doing some of ur everyday jobs. The day u learn nothing is the the day u die!

freedominacup

Panch18 wrote: »

A couple of things I would say

• It seems to me that for every bad host farmer there is a bad student who will do f### all work and have little or no interest
• It is the norm in most industries when you have collage placement students who are wet behind the ears on hand for 3 months that they do the crap work, or just make the tea. Very few gain worthwhile experience in 3 months - apart from how the work environment operates - hell even graduates in their first few years out of Uni can still get all the crap work and plenty of it to boot e.g. solicitors, accountants
• While no student should be exclusively doing the calves or scraping sh#t - these are still part of the job of being a dairy farmer so plenty of exposure to them is no harm

Of course nobody should be treated like a slave but getting all the crap work as a 3 month work experience placement is not exclusive to farming I'm afraid

If you are correct then what is the point of the work experience placement. It seems to be there purely as a scheme to provide labour at lowest cost to connected fcukers to tight to pay proper salaries. I can think of only one farmer in my area who gets students where I would allow any of my kids go on a placement, the rest I wouldn't advise any one to go to. I was passing one of them today. 6-8 maiden heifers out in a 15 acre silage field, virtually no roadways on the place and with practices like that he's getting students since before I had need of a host farm.

loveta

There seems to be alot of talk about being "in the know/click" to get a student but AFAIK this is not the case. I am a host farmer since 08 never a problem getting "a" student down to my location because there is more students than host farmers in my general area no other reason.My problem is i want a guy with some dairy experience but it is predominantly suckler farmer guys that i get. Now say you get a good student, grand your sorted they will pick up stuff quick but to be honest they are scarce. Get a average student there 12 weeks is near over before they are getting good. Get a bad lad..... well lets just say you are better of on your own. The only way to see about getting a student is get on to teagasc and get the forms and talk to guys in your area who have them and get the number of the student facilitator in your area and introduce your self to him/her.