One spring morning, at this time of the year, 20 or more years ago, I put on the Italian mafia navy pinstriped suit, tied a stylish Windsor knot on the green silky tie emblazoned with colourful cattle and gave the black wedding shoes their annual polish.

My grandfather said if you have shiny shoes and a tie you could go anywhere. I was on a mission and wanted to cultivate the image of a smart go-ahead young man who you could send anywhere to do anything. Gerald Potterton meets 007, if you will.

Ready for off and with a final check in the hall mirror, I patted the newly cut hair and had a quick look at my notes. Now fully composed, I hit the road – destination the Irish Farm Centre in Bluebell.

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I expect you’re thinking this is what I had to do to get this cushy number writing my particular type of rubbish for the Irish Farmers Journal.

All back in the day when real men wore ties and drank a glass of Smithwicks rather than the pints of stout of the working man.

We’ll blame Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary for instigating the informal tieless culture and clever marketing to elevate stout to being the super cool drink of the rugby fraternity.

Anyhow Matt Dempsey was then editor of the Irish Farmers Journal (I’m now on my fourth editor, not that I’d be drinking with them every week) but this was not who I was there to meet. In fact, I wasn’t told who I would be meeting except that there would be one member of the Agricultural Trust.

Every day's a school day

I had been called to an interview as an applicant for a Nuffield Scholarship. Yes, I was at the older end of the age range which had recently been increased to 42. Older applicants like me should bring a level of experience and maturity to the award. Me? Not a chance.

Obviously, I can’t tell you who the three-person interrogation, sorry interviewing, panel was but the format was the usual good cop/bad cop role-playing scenario.

I had applied to study the then topical issue of farming in a post-subsidy era using the example of New Zealand.

The plan was to shoulder a backpack and head south to NZ to see how they were managing, as subsidies had been wiped out overnight, a few years previously. I was enthusiastic about my topic and it presented a new challenge to me as I wasn’t an experienced traveller.

A Nuffield Scholarship could be the making of me. And that would be no harm.

It’s not all about your chosen study but as much about character development, education and identifying industry-leading qualities. A fair number of the movers and shakers in agriculture in these islands are Nuffield scholars.

I was enthusiastic about my topic and it presented a new challenge to me as I wasn’t an experienced traveller

However, I didn’t think the interview went particularly well. It didn’t – the panel declined to let me loose in New Zealand or anywhere else and I was disappointed.

But I would certainly encourage any of you who are young and enthusiastically interested in your agricultural or related field to apply as it could be a positive life changing experience for you.

Nowadays my tour of distant agricultural fields is limited to terraHorsch. TerraHorsch is the quarterly Horsch magazine profiling farmers worldwide. I’ve been all over Europe, the US, Canada, South America and, indeed, down under.

On reflection, maybe this quarterly virtual farming tour was best for me. Had I headed off on my tod I might have hitched up with a nice Kiwi and be milking bloody cows now. Besides she mightn’t have gone down too well in Kildalkey, let alone Moyrath. Life-changing indeed – but not in the Nuffield way.