Education – from primary through to the tertiary sector – has emerged as the key issue raised in Victorian submissions to a Federal parliamentary agricultural innovation inquiry.
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry, headed by South Australian Liberal MP Rowan Ramsay, met in Wodonga and Melbourne, last week.
The committee is looking at how farmers and the wider agriculture sector are adapting to innovation and technology. In the North-East, Rutherglen Premium Lamb production manager Jennifer Anderson said agricultural education should start in primary school.
She told the committee when the capacity to learn was at its greatest, the connection between basic foods and the farm was not being made. “Country children may make these connections, but city children may go through primary school and never have a teacher or a parent who connects the cow to the milk in the fridge,” she said in her submission.“Farm kids get it right from the start – I’m very aware, some small children don’t know where the sun rises, or what the temperature is for the day.”Ms Anderson said primary school students should be encouraged to visit farms and saleyards, grow food, measure weather and the climate and go on agricultural camps. “These ‘agrinauts” will be ag-ready for year seven,” she said in her submission.
The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program, introduced to the King Valley schools cluster, was a good example of what could be done.“This has developed into chooks, rearing calves and going to the saleyards to see the calves sold.”
Agriculture must be a core subject in year seven, with work experience in dairies, saleyards, orchards and sheep properties.
Retired Mansfield beef breeder Don Lawson told the hearing Australia was falling behind international standards, when it came to tertiary education of farmers.Mr Lawson called for the formation of a centre of excellence in agricultural higher education. He said the two “ineffectual” schools at the University of Melbourne and Latrobe University should be merged into one, with a possible second centre at Ballarat. “I can’t find anyone teaching international trade and marketing in agriculture,” Mr Lawson told the committee.
He said in New Zealand, 24 per cent of the rural sector was tertiary trained, while in America it was 40pc.“It is suggested we, in Australia, have about seven per cent with tertiary training.”
The Council of Veterinary Deans of Australia and New Zealand called for public support for veterinary education to be made a government priority.
The council is made up of eight veterinary schools throughout Australia and New Zealand. Council executive officer Dr Scott Williams told the inquiry there was “massive scope” for further improvements in agricultural practices, due to the research being conducted by veterinary and agricultural schools.
“Australia’s competitive advantage as an agricultural producer lies increasingly in the quality of its product, rather than its price,” the submission said. Dr Williams said the veterinary profession’s role in maintaining Australia’s biosecurity status was often forgotten. “It’s become a very expensive degree to undertake for people – we are having the problem of getting vets out into the country,” Dr Williams said.
The main aim of the submission was to remind government of the importance of the profession.
“If veterinary education and research is neglected, and we are not necessarily saying it is, our biosecurity status will slip,” he said.
Maintaining high standards of animal health, welfare, biosecurity and food safety would only become more difficult, over coming decades, the submission said.
“Climate change, increasing trade flows, a growing human population, intensification of livestock production, pressures to reduce the cost of production and other factors all present serious challenges.”
Dr Williams said countering those challenges required a “sustained innovation pipeline” from fundamental research, to adoption. The schools also provided a major service export to Asia, with students conversant in Australian systems and techniques.
