After the change in Government advice, to again work from home if you could, I cleared my desk at Portbury and set up a station to work from home. Despite being mainly home-based, when required I was still fortunate to go out on farm helping specialists to carry out essential task e.g calf weighing, soil sampling and crop / grassland walking; taking separate cars, keeping distance from farmers and ensuring high biosecurity standards and this allowed my learning experience to continue.
I was currently living in Bristol at the start of my placement, but due to lockdown I had the opportunity to move back onto the family farm and continue my placement from here. I thought this may hinder my experience, but after huge support from Cara I realised it wouldn’t have any effect on my placement at all. In fact, with ForFarmers operating nationally, up and down the country I had the opportunity to work alongside my family farm Account Manager Geoff Tidy, going out on my own on farm taking silage samples for his customers, whilst also catching up over the phone with other local account managers and specialists in my area.
My favourite thing about ForFarmers is that you can pick up the phone to anybody and they will be willing to help you, which I think is majorly important in these unprecedented times, especially when you are a training student working from home! Hopefully the New Year will continue to allow me to be out on farm doing what I am most passionate about.