Around 7,000 students packed Dublin’s RDS arena for last week’s Agri Careers Fair, which aims to pave the way for young people interested in a career in agriculture or horticulture.
Banana importer Fyffes regards the fair as the ideal showcase for its graduate management programme, and jobseekers visiting the company’s stand were able to meet with senior management to discover first-hand whether they wished to enter this challenging industry or not.
Students learned about Fyffes’s placement scheme in Central American countries including Belize, Costa Rica and Panama, where graduates can develop in-depth knowledge of the tropical fruit supply chain.
Ciaran Sweeney, general manager at Fyffes’s distribution centre in Swords, who graduated from this very management programme, participated in a panel discussion organised by the fair.
“Applicants who are accepted on our programme get the opportunity to experience all the challenges we face in bringing our products to the shelves in perfect condition,” he said, “from soil preparation to seeding, production, harvesting, packaging, logistics, ripening, quality control and distribution.”
