Two 16-year-olds studying at the same North Wales agricultural college who both run their own sheep flock have been chosen as the first winners of the Farmers' Union of Wales £1,500 bursary for further education students.
Winner of the £1,000 first prize, Dafydd Fôn Ifan, lives on the family farm, Ty Mawr, Llanrhaeadr, Denbigh, and runner-up Miriam Elan Davies, of Maenarthur, Pontrhydygroes, Ceredigion, received £500. Both attend Llysfasi College, near Ruthin, Denbighshire.
Dafydd's family keep around 1,200 sheep and 20 beef cattle. He studies Agriculture Level 3 on four days a week and works on the family farm on the other three days.
His main hobby is breeding 50 Texel sheep and selling rams and store lambs after researching genetics on the internet. He hopes to join the family farming business in the future and increase the flock.
He enters his own stock at the local show and last year won first prize with store lambs and reserve champion with sheep in the young farmers’ section.
"I would like to continue to further develop my skills in agriculture so winning the bursary means so much to me as a young farmer," he said after receiving the award during last weekend's Royal Welsh Spring Festival.
"Farming is an industry that needs to be financially strong in order to thrive. It’s vitally important to continue to invest in order to expand my business which is separate to the family business.
"Winning the bursary is a massive boost to my hopes of managing a flock of sheep successfully," he added.
"The money provides me with an opportunity to invest in new and better genetics by using artificial insemination or an embryo transplant for my sheep that would improve their quality and performance, as well as quickly increasing my flock."
Miriam, who also studies Agriculture Level 3, decided to buy some sheep to start her own flock after her parents gave up farming on their 300-acre upland farm.
"I started with 30 Welsh ewes in 2010 but now the flock has increased to 75 consisting of a mixture of pure Welsh sheep, Speckles, Welsh Mules and halfbreds.
"Being selected as runner-up will enable me to buy new stock to increase my flock further. At the moment, I'm concentrating on breeding quality ewe lambs to increase my flock.
"I use a Bluefaced Leicester ram on Welsh ewes and Speckles to get Welsh Mules, but I’m looking at buying Aberdales sheep as they are very fertile sheep with a high lambing percentage, 180-200 per cent. They would offer a high number of ewe lambs to keep for breeding.
"The Aberdales also rear store lambs of a good conformation, so I would get a good slaughter price for ram lambs. I also hope to increase my flock of Speckles in order to prove if the Welsh or Speckles ewes rear the best Welsh Mules out of a Bluefaced Leicester ram.
"I believe that there is a good opportunity whilst I’m studying at the college to experiment with different breeds and systems. I enjoy learning about the different ways of breeding sheep and the different breeding bloodlines.
"The bursary money will give me a strong base to plan a successful future for myself as a sheep farmer," added Miriam, who is an active member of Trisant YFC.
Presenting the awards, FUW agricultural education and training committee chairman Alun Edwards said the union's student bursary scheme was revamped last year with a total of £3,000 being divided between university and further education students.
"The union was keen to attract more applications from further education students so we doubled the total bursary amount available to make sure we had more entries from that sector," he said.
Praising the entries of the two finalists, Mr Edwards said the bursary judges were looking forward to closely following their respective future careers.
"There remains a problem in our schools as to how agriculture is perceived so it's a big responsibility of ours to further agriculture as a career.
"There is potentially a good career in farming and both finalists have expressed this very firmly in their written entries and they have also shown they are very interested in their local community and giving something back."
