Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the incredible event that is AgVision
This one-day agricultural careers expo is the brain child of Junee high school teacher Sandra Heffernan and team and is designed to inform students and educators about the broad range of careers available in agriculture, science and agri-business. Students from Years 9-11 had the opportunity to learn from industry experts and to select five workshops from a choice of 50 hands-on sessions.
This year the RAS of NSW hosted the event and invited the Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champions to help them showcase the exciting young people who have chosen diverse careers in agriculture.
Young Farming Champions Tom Tourle and Tim Eyes are great advocates for the TAFE pathways
Peta Bradley, Dee George, Kylie Schuller, Martin Murray and Rebecca Thistlethwaite all shared their university adventure
Our industry bodies were there en masse and if they weren’t there was some-body else doing a great job of showcasing their industry
Well done UNE – loved the grain fed versus grass fed session hosted by Kylie Schuller. Learnt so much and the students were glued to Kylie’s every word
I had the opportunity to see the sessions run by Belinda Cay from Agcommunicators on behalf of GRDC. Wow she is impressive and again it was a fantastic refresher course for me on DNA and plant science.
I will do a separate post on this activation. We have some great video footage and slides we can share with you including a great video of an experiment YFC and graduate agronomist with Elders Dee George performed for the students
Emily King from AWI hosted a great wool workshop with Tom and Peta and Amy and it was heartening the number of young people in the audience who are keen to go back to the farm and pursue the family tradition of wool production
I was recently part of a twitter discussion with farmers few weeks ago who are very passionate about educating students and teachers about agriculture and careers in agriculture.
Most industries now have fantastic resources for schools and there a number of bodies like PIEFA, RAS of NSW and GRDC who do very impressive professional development workshops for teachers to help them roll out the resources in the classroom.
Sadly few farmers know this. Its also important for our farmers to know the aim is to raise awareness of the diversity of agriculture careers and not to necessarily educate the world about agriculture.
By farmers directly engaging with the community we can help build mutually beneficial relationships with the people who buy what farmers produce. We can show them the faith they have in farmers iin this country to produce safe and healthy food is warranted and encourage parents to be excited if their sons and daughters choose a career in the food and fibre sector
I am a farmer and I learnt a huge amount yesterday. I learnt whilst grain fed beef is tenderer I prefer the flavour of grass fed beef
I saw how exciting plant science is and I learnt a lot about wool. The community isn’t ignorant they just aren’t lucky enough to have the advantages I have. To grow up surrounded by agriculture and able to attend events like yesterday and learn about other facets of agriculture I don’t have in-depth knowledge of
Be assured farmers there are lots of wonderful people and industries funded by your levies doing a great job marketing what you do to next gen. We are just competing in a big space with very limited funding and man/woman power to achieve it
To sum up Agvision is an exhilarating event for students, teachers and display holders and I very confident it inspired many of next gen food and fibre producers to get excited about a career in ag