Feeding the world when another 158 people are born every minute is a big job and if we are going to meet this challenge the world will need to see partnerships across the globe between farmers and consumers

In Australia many wonderful initiatives are actively working to engage the next generation of consumers with farmers to partner to achieve this huge task

Today April Browne and Chris Vella are sharing with you an initiative they are coordinating at  University of Western Sydney (UWS)

Chris Vella Science Education Officer Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE)

As we all know students who participate in agriculture related activities are passionate about the Agriculture industry. They are motivated about their role and are ready to play an active part in Agriculture’s future growth and development. Teachers do an excellent job of building the intrinsic drive for students to get involved in in agriculture. We at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) see our role, as stakeholders in the agri-food chain to build on teachers’ efforts and encourage a lifelong involvement in the industry.

The Youth Agvocate Forum will give a group of year 10 students a unique opportunity to develop their own agricultural values whilst building social capital, an understanding of the agricultural industry and of UWS course offerings. Working in groups, students will engage in three days of experiences at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and UWS which will showcase the best that agriculture has to offer. Over the three days, each group will use their experiences to design an engagement strategy for increasing ‘agvocacy’ amongst their high school colleagues. Students will then have the unique opportunity to pitch their strategy to the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) Youth Group for consideration.

The experience of interacting with the general public and promoting agriculture in light of what they participate in is also a skill which will serve them as lifelong learners and ‘agvocates’.

We look forward to giving these students as well as their colleagues a head start into what will be a bright future for them in the agricultural industry.

You can find the flyer and application form here

You can read about April Browne who will be helping Chris run the workshop here