Medina FFA takes trip in Ireland, seeing sustainable agriculture up close

Provided photos: These students are pictured with the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. Pictured from left in back include Ahlyssa Miller, Jack Cecchini, Mason Eick, Adeline Castricone and Angel Mulchay. In front include Will Prest, Sawyer Kingsbury, Faith Baker-Austin, Morgan Zeiner, Liam Castricone, Nate Surdell, and Zach Lilley.

Press Release, Medina Central School

MEDINA – Todd Eick, the Medina Junior-Senior High School FFA advisor, had been hoping to take his students on an international trip for several years now.  “I had been really exploring possibilities and then Covid hit and I had to let it go by the wayside,” he said.

This past summer his dream for himself and 13 students came to fruition.

“My daughter had just gone on a trip with Mrs. Peracciny, one of our Spanish teachers, to London, Rome and Paris and I was looking at the photos and thought why aren’t I doing this?”

Mr. Eick looked into different tours and found one focused on agriculture in Ireland.  Ireland’s agriculture sector is a key driver of its economy and is characterized by a focus on livestock production and exports.  There are roughly 135,000 farms in Ireland.

“For our first trip it was really perfect,” he said. “It is an English-speaking country and included farm tours, horticulture tours and aquaculture tours. It all fit.”

The FFA students were joined by a group of students from northern California bringing their total to 30 for the 10-day trip that went to Dublin, Kilkenny, Waterford, Galway, back to Dublin.

“These students came from a very rural section of the west coast and it took them three hours to get to the airport from their town,” Mr. Eick said.  “It is much more rural than where we are from. It definitely added to the learning experience for my students hearing about their day-to-day lives.”

This photo shows the Medina and California students together. They spent 10 days visiting sites in Ireland. They are shown with the tour guide and driver.

The trip involved a lot of diversity for the students; everything from a pig farm, cattle farm, sheep farm, crop farms and oyster farms. They even observed the training of sheepdogs, which they all loved.

“I was very impressed with the farmers we interacted with and it was an amazing adventure for myself and the students,” Eick said. “They really got to experience farm life over there and the farmers were very energetic and very honest with the students about not only their livelihood, but their personal lives as well. One farmer shared with them his struggle with depression and how getting professional help really saved him. It was a great conversation for the students and I think made them aware that it is okay to talk about these issues. It was very impromptu and real and I think the students appreciated his honesty.”

The farmers did a great job engaging all 30 kids and making sure they experienced different things, Mr. Eick said.

“They learned a lot about the Irish culture and traditions as well,” he said.

One of Mr. Eick’s students, Morgan Zeiner, said the trip was a gift.

“My mom really wanted me to go and I have to say it was very cool,” Morgan said. “I loved learning about the history of Ireland and going to the farms was great. It was very hands-on and we milked cows, picked strawberries and helped to harvest oysters. We loved playing with the lambs. As we were walking through the cities and towns, I felt like I was walking through a museum. It was very historical and it was cool to learn about some of their laws too.”

One of those laws was about opening hedgerows where if they did that, they had to plant three times the amount elsewhere.

“The thought is to replace it with more than what you are removing,” Mr. Eick said.  “They have a very sustainable agriculture mindset there. I wish we did things like that here.”

Mr. Eick said the trip was very successful in exposing the students to a different culture and expanding their worldview.

“In 2026, I plan on taking a group of students to Costa Rica and Panama and I am very excited about being able to offer them that experience of seeing the rainforest and volcanos and learning about the flora and fauna,” he said.