Swiss student, Claire Simonetta has won AgriScot’s Business Skills competition, beating three finalists to take the £1000 prize.

Claire, a third year agriculture student at Scotland’s Rural College SRUC in Ayr, won the competition following a presentation and interview at AgriScot.

Claire and her fellow finalists, Isaac Carswell, Amy Jo Reid, Fraser Thomson, all SRUC students or graduates, were required at short notice to present DeLaval’s Herd Navigator milk analysis tool, one of the entries in AgriScot’s Product Innovation Award.

The competition was generously sponsored by animal nutrition specialists, Biocell Agri and coordinated by Caroline Daniel of SRUC.

Winner Claire Simonetta of Torloisk Farm, Ulva Ferry, Isle of Mull said:
“Taking part in the competition has been a fantastic experience. I’ve particularly enjoyed meeting new people who are motivated to learn. Throughout the competition, the judges have given very useful feedback and I’ve appreciated learning where my strengths and weaknesses lie as it will help me work out where I need to improve; for example, I don’t have a dairy background, so presenting a dairy product was quite daunting.

“All those involved in arranging and judging the competition have been generous with their time and I will keep in touch with them as I found my conversations with them very helpful and worthwhile.

“I’ve still got a year or two of study to complete and when I graduate I hope to continue farming and perhaps to take on an advisory role.

Alec Ross of Biocell Agri said: “Biocell Agri has been sponsoring the Business Skills competition at AgriScot for six years and I am delighted to say that the field just keeps getting stronger. It is so encouraging to see such intelligent, progressive young people coming into agriculture and my colleague, Peter Gillard and I feel privileged to be associated with the competition.