TWO people from in and near York are competing in agricultural challenges to be named Farmers Apprentice 2016.

York university student Lucy Wild, 22, is joint site secretary for Low Moor allotments in east York and a qualified chef, and has completed courses in marine lifesaving skills including firefighting.

Cyclist Joe Weston, also 22, of Overton, just north of York, wants to own his own deer park. He is a retail operations manager in a major bike shop.

Both have made it through to the final of the Farmers Apprentice 2016 in which they completed a boot-camp week of tough farming challenges at Bishop Burton College near Beverley.

They will learn on November 4 if they have won the first prize of a one-year £25,000 assistant farm manager apprenticeship with Farmcare Ltd, which cultivates 40,000 acres in more than a dozen farms .