Agriculture's image problem: 4000 jobs a year, and 700 graduates

That’s the belief of Professor Jim Pratley from Charles Sturt University, who is undertaking a review into agricultural education for the NSW Government.

Professor Pratley, who was at Tocal College yesterday for a NSW agriculture teachers conference, said a huge gap existed between the number of graduate-level positions and the number of students completing tertiary courses.

“In the university sector, the job market is about 4000 a year and we’re producing something under 700 graduates, it’s about a 6 to 1 ratio at the moment, it’s a huge gap,” he said.

“Our supply of people into the workforce after [they have completed] training has seen a 40 per cent decline in the last decade.”

In the past 20 years Professor Pratley said first business and then the IT sectors took a large chuck of prospective students from the industry, while well paying mining and medical-related opportunities continued to appear as more attractive career options.

“One of the problems is that we’ve had trouble getting the message through that there are great opportunities in agriculture,” he said.

“The salary levels now are in the top five for university graduates.

“But agriculture has not been seen as sexy, it’s been seen as old world, it’s been seen as long hours, lots of stress.

“It hasn’t been seen for what it is, which is a high tech, really modern industry.” 

Agronomy - the science of soil management and crop production - has been the hardest hit area, with one university-qualified agronomist for every 10 jobs available.

Professor Pratley said the undersupply of labour opened up the door for “snake oil salesmen” to push their products on farmers.

“There’s a lot of products out on the market that have no effect at all and farmers are paying millions and millions of dollars for those and we’re struggling to have enough experts to be able to say ‘don’t use this, it doesn’t work’,” he said.

“We’re into the evidence free zone, a bit like some of the claims for nutrition and medical products you see.

“It’s happening in agriculture and it’s at a peak now, so we really have to get rid of it.”

The state government announced the terms of reference for its independent review into agricultural education and training in July last year, with a report and recommendations due by the end of June.

The review is designed to identify whether the education and training in NSW is appropriate for the future needs of the agriculture industry, as well as highlighting measures to promote the sector to students as an attractive career choice.