Tractor driving training course for women to take place next month

FRS Training is partnering with Irish farming influencer, Sophie Bell to launch a tailored safe tractor driving course specifically designed for women.

A tailored safe tractor driving course specifically designed for women has been launched. 

The course will provide a female-focused learning environment and will cover all the main elements of tractor driving, as well as the use of tractor attachments.

The idea for this course originally came from farming social media influencer Sophie Bell.

Ms Bell, who farms in Virginia, Co Cavan, said that many of her young female social media followers reached out to her expressing their interest in there being a course like this established. She subsequently contacted FRS Training to partner with it to prepare the new course.

The initial pilot will run in Ms Bell's local area in Co Cavan on April 20. 

If the pilot is successful, FRS Training said it then hopes to expand the course to multiple other locations around the country.

Participants in the course will be able to avail of both hands-on learning and classroom teaching. 

Access to training

Among the topics covered during the one-day course will be practical driving skills, safety checks before starting, setting up a good driving position, safe driving, hitching tractors to other implements, operating trailed machinery from a tractor, and checking the terrain.

“This is a course that a lot of young women in the farming community have been looking for,” Ms Bell said. 

“Several of my followers raised the need for a training course like this with me.

I think there are a lot of women who would like to learn how to safely use and manoeuvre tractors and attachments, but not everyone has access to proper training environments and the correct machinery. 

"This course will address that, allowing women to learn amongst their peers, picking up knowledge and connections."

As well as being a farming content creator, Ms Bell also works in veterinary public health relations in the civil service and is undertaking a masters degree in University College Dublin.