Bianca Green, 18, was named the top subject scholar for all of New Zealand in agricultural and horticultural science last year. PHOTO/GIANINA SCHWANECKE
GIANINA SCHWANECKE
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From animal welfare to human health, the country’s top agriculture and horticulture scholarship winner for 2019 has now set her sights on a career in medicine.
Bianca Green, a former St Matthew’s Collegiate and Rathkeale College pupil, has been named as the top scholar by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.
The 18-year-old Masterton woman was excited by the news, which comes with a $2000 scholarship each year for three years.
She became interested in agriculture because she lived rurally and her grandparents were farmers.
She liked that the subject required innovation and problem solving.
Her primary interests were in sheep and beef and her scholarship paper focused on land use changes over the past 25 years, specifically in relation to climate change.
“It’s quite an historic land use and industry in New Zealand,” she said. “It’s interesting to see what it’s like in the 21st century.”
She thanked her agriculture and agribusiness teacher Coadette Low for her help and for organising different field trips around the region and to the Mystery Creek Fieldays last year.
Green said she was also surprised to have received an outstanding scholarship in biology, as it had been agriculture which she tried the hardest in.
It may be that her biology degree comes in handier though, as Green intends to transfer from Lincoln University to Otago University where she hopes to study medicine next year.
“It’s a good mix of humanities and sciences,” she said.
The top scholars were not able to attend the awards ceremony due to covid-19 but there were plans to celebrate at a later date.
