Investing In Ag Education: Necessity, Not Option
4 March 2025. John Baker, AgForce CQ Regional Director and President.
It’s clear from speaking to fellow primary producers like myself, that there’s an urgent need to increase the level of awareness of the importance of Agriculture and where people’s food comes from in the wider community.
Increasing numbers of young people are looking for alternatives to the city career options, looking instead to a life on the land and needing training.
AgForce recognises how critical the education of young people with an interest in Agriculture is. As such we’ve invested members’ funds heavily in the Schools to Industry Partnership Program in collaboration with the Queensland Government, as well as starting an AgForce Training organisation to try and fill the gap https://ag.training/.
AgForce’s renowned SIPP is taking on the challenge of connecting schools with the agriculture industry in a time when the divide between urban and rural communities continues to grow.
Queensland is Australia’s largest agricultural state, yet following the closure of its last Agricultural College in 2019, young people looking for pathways into the industry have had to travel to places as far away such as Victoria. Meaning we are potentially losing their expertise if they decide to stay there.
So in response to these Ag College closures we have developed AgForce Training, potentially running training courses at Belmont as well as other sites across the State.
AgForce owned Belmont Research Station in partnership with RGS provides Cert2 and Cert3 levels of training in partnership with the CQU Degree in Agriculture.
Belmont also has livestock research being done by CQU, and Brian Pastures is leased by DPI and used for research also.
Producers, through their state farming organisations, should not be funding education – but here we are.
I am proud to be a part of AgForce pushing for better pathways for the next generation of producers in Queensland. It’s vital that we encourage the next generation coming through to give our industry a future.
We will also continue to ensure that those who should be delivering these pathways – our Government – are supportive and back those necessary pathways as a crucial feed into the Queensland industry – making it viable into the future.
Food and Fibre is actually mentioned 168 times in the Australian curriculum. But too often we find our teachers lack the knowledge and confidence to teach it in the classroom.
There are many great agriculture industry curriculum aligned resources available, however if teachers don’t know where to find them or they don’t have the knowledge or confidence to use them in the classroom, then they aren’t going to.
So AgForce is leading the way to give teachers this knowledge and increase their confidence to use agriculture in their classrooms – through industry engagement programs and professional development (SIPP).
https://agforceqld.org.au/knowledgebase/article/AGF-02316/