How Do We Attract New Talent to Agrifood?
16 March 2018 / Published in BusinessHow can the primary industries continue to attract new skills and talent and develop the next generation of industry leaders? A mix of emerging and established industry leaders gathered at Future Leaders 2018, part of NZ AgriFood Week, to tackle the question.
You’ve probably heard of the urban-rural divide. It’s been a frequent topic of news stories over the past year particularly in the election as the spotlight shone on water quality. Whether or not such a divide exists is still openly debated, but if the panellists of Future Leaders 2018 are to be believed, there is a growing number of Kiwis who don’t understand the breadth of the primary sector. The number of roles required in this sector is only expected to grow, and rural New Zealand can’t fill all of these alone.
Future Leaders 2018, part of NZ Agrifood Week, was held last week in the Manawatu. The half day event featured six speakers, a mix of emerging and established industry leaders, each offering their own take on what job attraction and leadership development looks like in the primary industries, moving forward.
In 2025 it’s estimated that there will be 140,000 support service jobs in primary industries. These support services roles include everything from researchers, consultants, and veterinarians to engineers, or those in robotics and IT. At the same time there’s expected to be fewer than 70,000 jobs in red meat and wool, or 50,000 in dairy. 1
So the range of skills required is becoming more and more diverse, but when many people think agriculture, their knowledge doesn’t go much further than shearing sheep or milking cows (essentially jobs inside the farm gate). This narrative will have to change rapidly if the primary industries are to attract the necessary talent into the workforce.
Abby Cook, a Year 13 student at St Peters School Cambridge, grew up on a large scale dairy farm in Southland. She wants to carry on the family business, but doesn’t think the primary sector does enough to sell itself, educate people to the lifestyle or stand out from all the other opportunities available.
“What I’m interested in is the everyday life of these jobs. I want to know what skills I will apply each day, the people I’ll work with, the challenges I’ll face. But at the moment there are no opportunities available that will give me this kind of close up look into the industry.”
“You hear often that there are so many opportunities in the primary industries, and so many more than you’d think. I’m sure this is true, but show me why [the primary sector] is more exciting than studying neurology or the human body?”
This lack of education regarding the industry could be contributing to a stigma towards those in the primary sector, suggests Bachelor of AgriCommerce student William Robertson.
“We talk about this massive shortages, that we need more people going in, but there’s still this idea that agriculture and horticulture are for “those kids”. The one’s who don’t do too well at school or aren’t academically minded.”
“I’ve had to justify my AgriCommerce degree to a number of people. It all comes down to a lack of knowledge. Those who’ve grown up in the city may have had no exposure to the agricultural industry. Because they’re not exposed, they don’t have this knowledge and they don’t know what it is and what’s going on.”
This lack of education was a recurring theme for the day, brought up repeatedly by each of the speakers. As Richard Hegan, ASB General Manger of Rural, pointed out these improvements to education will have to be driven by those in the agricultural industry.
“The opportunities are going to keep coming at us, the competition for resources are going to keep coming at us, so agriculture needs a very good story. It’s really important that participants in the industry can talk to people about exactly what they do, exactly why they do it and why the person being spoken to should really hear about it.”
“The real challenge here is to leverage what a whole lot of people in agriculture already know, but combine it with what a lot of other people know. Bring different thinking together to deliver the preferred future we have for New Zealand.”
Crafting a new narrative isn’t the only challenge for those in the primary industries. As many great points were made at Future Leaders, the vast majority of those in attendance were from the agricultural sector. There’s a real risk that those who most need to hear these stories and most need to be included in the conversation aren’t present at the table. The primary industries will have to find a way to reach greater audiences if they hope to attract new talent..
National MP for Waikato Tim van de Molen, who spent a number of years working in rural banking and dairy farming, is confident that progress is being made, but notes that the speed with which we need to adapt is only getting faster.
“We are actually making progress in this space. I think if we consider how the primary industries are perceived now compared to ten, twenty or thirty years, we have seen significant improvements.
“What we’re seeing now is a rate of change that is quickening, more and more rapidly. There are some real changes to we need to be mindful of as we innovate and grow and learn, so we can provide the right solutions as we move forward.”
New Zealand is currently seeing strong results in the primary industries. Primary industry exports are forecast to rise nearly 11% in the year ending June 2018, reaching $42.4 billion, the largest annual increase since 2014. December 2017 was the highest month ever for primary sector export revenue.2
But if we hope to keep up with the expected demand, changes and competition moving forward, New Zealanders will have to work harder to better communicate and understand the wealth of opportunities available within the primary industries. If we can bridge that apparent divide between rural and urban New Zealand, all of us stand to benefit.
