Three European students say coming halfway around the world to do internships at Lincoln Agritech is giving them real confidence in their abilities.

Léa Cabrol and Josselin Blanchard are both doing degrees in agronomy engineering – Léa at the Institut Agro Montpellier and Jossellin at the Institut Agro Dijon, both in France. Tijmen Krijen is doing a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and management at Hanzehogeschool Groningen University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands.

Josselin says when deciding where to do his internship, between his fourth and fifth years of study, he was looking for companies that were strong in researching sustainable development for agriculture. “I think Lincoln Agritech is one of the best for that,” he says.

And then he adds, “I also thought I would like to travel as far from France as I could!”

Josselin is working on a project to detect diseases in presymptomatic pip fruit, and says he really appreciates the chance to work on “a project to solve a real problem done by a real company”.

Léa is also enjoying the responsibility and autonomy she has been given in her project, looking at whether weeds can be killed with radically new physical methods, rather than using toxic chemicals.

“What I like is mostly I’m independent, and my supervisor trusts me – that’s very empowering. I can run my own experiments – that’s a first time for me!”

Tijmen says his assignment is very close to his field of study. He’s working on the forestry robotics project Lincoln Agritech is leading. “I have to map the current processes and figure out what the forestry company has to change for different scenarios when working with robots.”

All three interns are supervised by senior scientists in Lincoln Agritech’s Precision Agriculture Group, and say the entire culture is very supportive. “If we have a problem, we can always go to someone and ask for help,” says Tijmen.

Precision Agriculture Group Manager Armin Werner says Lincoln Agritech is privileged to work with the interns. “They enrich our strong international staff culture and contribute with hard work and great ideas.”

Lincoln Agritech has had almost 30 interns in the past decade and has a growing reputation for nurturing domestic and international students.

Vic Grosjean, a previous company intern, says his time at Lincoln Agritech was the best experience of his career.

“I will never forget the experience I had with Lincoln Agritech. It’s been 12 years now, but a part of me has never left Lincoln! I can’t be grateful enough.”