Students from the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) competed in the 10th annual Great Agri-Food Debate. The team included Caleb Orr, Niamh Reid, Jane May and TJ Hamilton from the BSc in Agricultural Technology at Greenmount Campus and Loughry Campus. Grace Hunter from BSc in Food Innovation and Nutrition and Jessica Cuthbertson from BSc in Food Business Management also participated.

In the quarter-final against Munster Technological University, the CAFRE team proposed that EU/UK budgetary pressures and changing priorities pose a greater risk to UK/Irish farming than the Mercosur agreement. The team won and advanced.

The semi-finals took place at South East Technological University in Waterford. CAFRE faced University College Dublin, which proposed using high-quality agricultural land for solar energy farms. UCD won the round.

Jessica Cuthbertson received the best speaker award in the quarter-final. The competing semi-final teams were CAFRE, University College Dublin, University College Cork and South East Technological University.

CAFRE staff and students thanked Dawn Meats and McDonald's for organising and supporting the event.