Sometimes the agricultural industry is its own worst enemy, we sometimes disagree with ourselves, disagree with the government, disagree with retailers, disagree with the EU and so on.

What people do not see is that there is a common bond within our industry that binds us together. It is a love of farming and the land, it is a love for a way of life that is anything but easy, it is common purpose.

It is unfortunate that the common purpose is not celebrated enough, there are those that would exploit our differences and unfortunately, we let them.

Yet, there are also occasions when we are on the same page.

Twenty-five years ago, Macra na Feirme approached our long-time supporters in FBD with an idea about a young farmer of the year competition. FBD, then like now took a punt on an idea from the young farmers and the FBD Young Farmer of the Year competition was born. Twenty-five years on, we are on the lookout for the 26th FBD Young Farmer of the Year.

The competition features category awards for Dairy, Drystock (Beef and Sheep), Other Enterprises (including Horticulture, Pigs, Poultry, Tillage, Equine, Forestry, etc), Land Mobility (including Collaborative Arrangements, Shared Milking, Contract Rearing, etc) and Career Farm Management.

Young farmers in these sectors are invited to enter and the winner of each sector will compete to be crowned the 2024 FBD Young Farmer of the Year.

There are also awards for Best Young Entrant (Under 23 years of age) and Macra Agricultural Skillnet Biodiversity Award.

This award is not alone run with the support of FBD, but also with the support of the IFA and also Macra agricultural Skillnet, this competition celebrates all that is good about Irish agriculture.

At the Macra steps for our future protest last year, we highlighted the one out of every 16 farmers in Ireland is a young farmer.

The one in 16 is an endangered species and that is why we are calling on all young farmers to put yourself forward for the competition.

One of our members once told me that he had been on 36 different farm walks and that he came away from each and every one of them with new knowledge. Can you imagine the knowledge that you could come away from the FBD Young Farmer of the Year competition with?

You can nominate a young farmer for one of the categories or you can enter yourself by visiting: https://macra.ie/collections/awards/products/fbd-young-farmer-of-the-year or scanning the QR code here.

The closing date for applications is Friday 19 July.