Young farmers helped to train in valuable sheep shearing skill

MINISTER of State at the Department of Agriculture and Galway West TD Noel Grealish has commended the efforts of Galway Rural Development on their sheep sector initiatives over the past month.

Last week, Galway Rural Development (GRD), through their SICAP programme, supported ten young farmers to train in sheep shearing delivered by Tom Kennedy Shearing Supplies.

The training, at Mountbellew Mart, will enable the young farmers to gain professional skills in Sheep Shearing that will allow them to follow the seasons around the world in a high demand profession. The participants will each receive a National Certificate in Shearing from Elite Wool Industry Training.

The training initiative has been praised by Minister Grealish.

"This is a great example of creating employment opportunities both near and far for rural people and it's being delivered on the purpose built, state-of-the-art shearing stage at Mountbellew Mart. Coupled with their grant of €130,000 to Mountbellew Shearfest and their efforts to increase the value of wool through their Wool Partnership, I want to commend Steve and the GRD team for their efforts," commented Minister Grealish.

CEO of GRD Steve Dolan said: “All credit to our training partners and the Mountbellew mart and festival team. We’ve been proud to provide grants and supports, including to the playground and Walled Garden, but every success here has been led by the Mountbellew community themselves. After announcing Mountbellew as our first ‘Smart Village’ four years ago, we followed-up with community training which saw the establishment of several initiatives – all led by the community themselves.

“In terms of our efforts with the wool sector, we are leading a partnership of local development companies in an analysis and development project to increase the value of Irish wool. In short, we aim to see how we can add value to the existing sheep wool produce in a range of products which can use fleeces, and to support the development of a value-chain; from processors to the production of yarn and garments for high-quality fabric wool fleece.”