NSW reviews agricultural education

NSW Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson:
"It's not about mum and dad on the farm any more."
Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Australian

JOHN ROSS

AGRICULTURE needs an image makeover, according to the people behind the latest review of education and training in the sector.

Jim Pratley, former dean of science and agriculture and now research professor at Charles Sturt University, said the industry’s image needed to be wrenched out of a 1950s mindset.

“We need to get people to understand that agriculture is not what it used to be in the middle of last century,” said Emeritus Professor Pratley, who’s leading the NSW government’s new review into agricultural education.

“The message gets back to people quickly if they want to go into a sexy area where there’s no jobs. We have to make agriculture sexy so that they can see there’s a good future there.”

Professor Pratley said a string of state and federal enquiries had examined the 20-year decline of professional agricultural training. “We now know that the graduate supply to make this professional workforce is about 20 per cent of what we need.

“We have such a shortfall that we could double graduate output and still not satisfy the demand.”

Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson, who commissioned the review along with Education Minister Adrian Piccoli, said more than half of agricultural jobs were no longer done in the country.

“It’s not about mum and dad on the farm anymore,” said Ms Hodgkinson, a fifth generation wool farmer from the NSW Southern Highlands.

“Sure, you’ve still got people in tractors roaming around, but that’s not what agriculture’s about. [The jobs are] in labs, commodity marketing, scientific research.

“You can grow up in the middle of [inner Sydney] Newtown and have a very exciting career in agriculture, working from the city.”

Mr Piccoli said he was worried Australia could lose its “corporate knowledge” of agricultural techniques and technology.

“My fear is that we’ll wake up one day with the mining boom finished, having missed a decade or two in agriculture. The future for the next 100 years and perhaps beyond is going to be around food supply, more so than iron ore.”

International enrolments in agriculture and environment-related degrees have grown strongly in recent years, but domestic growth has been slow. Student numbers increased 3.5 per cent in 2010, almost 2 percentage points lower than the overall domestic growth at universities. Last year, domestic agriculture and environment enrolments fell marginally.

Professor Pratley said agricultural enrolments had risen slightly under the uncapped higher education system, which commenced this year. But he acknowledged that the demand-driven system could further jeopardise enrolments in an area where student interest had been fleeting.

“We need people to understand how attractive a career in agriculture really is,” he said.

“We’ve moved into the 21st century and the paradigms we’ve been operating on are just not appropriate for the modern technologies, communication and marketing systems. We need a highly professional qualified workforce, not only on farm but all the support industry that goes with it.”

Professor Pratley said the recent and ongoing Productivity Commission, Senate and Victorian parliamentary inquiries had defined and quantified the problem. “The issue is, what do we do about it?” he said.

Mr Piccoli said NSW had delayed its review until after the Senate committee reported in March, to avoid duplicating its work. But he said NSW had distinctive facilities such as agricultural high schools and largely disused agricultural research stations that could be converted into educational centres. “There are unique circumstances in NSW that warrant its own inquiry,” he said.

While the review isn’t due to report until mid next year, Mr Piccoli said the idea of embedding agriculture in the school curriculum was certain to be raised. “School is really important,” he said.

“We need forklift and truck drivers, we need PhDs, we need researchers, we need academics, we need scientists. You’re going to struggle to get [people] interested in pursuing agriculture at vocational colleges or university if they don’t have an interest at school.”

Original Article here