THE much-lauded General Farm Worker Apprenticeship qualification, a business-education partnership between Craven Cattle Marts, Craven College and local farms, continues to make its mark.

There was a notable success in the show arena at Skipton Auction Mart for one of the apprentices, 17-year-old Emily Smith, who farms with her parents John and Lyne at Glen Farm, Carleton.

At CCM’s annual evening show and sale of registered Swaledale rams, Emily was over the moon when her 3-shear aged ram sold at £1200, going to Nidderdale with Paul Newbould, of A Newbould & Son, Dallowgill.

Emily, who works part-time at Skipton, is among a group of young people aged 16-18 working towards the qualification, purpose-designed to help fill an acute shortage of young farm workers currently coming into the agricultural sector.

The pioneering project involves placements at Skipton Auction Mart to gain sale day work experience, running alongside farm-based experience at local farms, which offers an across-the-board range of working practices and disciplines involving cattle, sheep and pigs, and all other general agricultural-related activities such as milking, calving, lambing, feeding, bedding, tractor and machinery handling, husbandry and treatments.

It is supplemented by day release training at Craven College, which for many years has maintained a major on-site presence at the auction mart site, specialising in agricultural-related courses such as Agriculture Crops and Livestock, Countryside Management and Gamekeeping, Equine Care and Management, Horticulture, Landscaping and Sports Turf.

At CCM, the scheme is being administered by Andrea Wade, who works in the mart office and farms in Cononley with her husband Robert, one of the local farmers involved in the project.

She is well-equipped for the role, having previously worked as a secondary school teacher for 23 years, latterly for ten years as Deputy Headteacher responsible for curriculum development, staff professional development and collaboration with other secondary schools and Post-16 providers in Pendle to ensure good outcomes and progression routes for young people, Andrea reports that as the first cohort of four commence their second year of training, the ground-breaking programme has welcomed two new apprentices.

Thomas Gray, from Steeton, has teamed up with Simon Kavanagh, of West Berwick Farm, Draughton, to begin his apprenticeship, finding his feet working with chickens, suckler cattle and sheep on Simon’s farm. Thomas’s father Andy Gray works at Ripon Farm Services, while grandfather David has a smallholding on Silsden Moor lambing a small flock of sheep.

The second newcomer, Joseph Davison, of Silsden, has begun working with Ben and Sam Chapman, from RM Shackleton, Broughton Fields, enjoying his role both in the dairy unit and with sheep. Joseph is the younger brother of Harvey Davidson, who was among the first cohort of last year’s apprentices and who lives with and has helped out on CCM regular Simon Bennett’s farm on Silsden Moor.

CCM’s general manager and auctioneer Jeremy Eaton commented: “The intention is to allow students to network and identify potential opportunities in the land-based sector, whilst at the same time opening up the possibility of a flexible part-time job beyond the end of the apprenticeship. This could well allow them to transition into a full-time role somewhere or even create their own freelance contracting business amongst the contacts that they create.”