Farming communities are on the cusp of an acute skills shortage driven by the end of the drought across Australia’s eastern and southern states.
The National Farmers Federation is calling on the Gillard government to make the training of young people in farming an education priority.
A decade-long drought has masked a chronic labour shortage in the farming sector.
At the start of the millennium drought in 2002 there were about 412000 people employed in the agriculture sector. By 2007 it dropped to 308000.
An additional 100000 workers are needed in the agricultural sector over 5 years to fill the labour gap on the land.
We are not producing enough agricultural graduates.