Category / Paddock Pen Pals

by Action4Agriculture

Agriculture workforce attraction is a marathon not a sprint

As Pratley et al highlight in their excellent paper in 2022 Winter Australian Farm Journal

Australian agriculture is at the crossroads. It is charging
ahead towards its goal of $100 billion gross value
of production (GVP) by 2030 but is compromised in
that endeavour by its limited ability to find a suitable
workforce.

Our Young Farming Champions know its important to engage the next generation in conversations about careers in agriculture as soon as possible

Today Wool Young Farming Champion Katherine Bain had those conversations with 110 Kindergarten students at  Sydney Primary School as part of our Paddock Pen Pals program

Armed with a list of questions provided to teachers by the students, Katherine settled in to share her story of her farm in Victoria

Students wanted to know

  • How big was Katherine’s farm which she explained in comparison to football fields and netball courts
  • How many paddocks and what do all the colours mean. Katherine explained the difference between improved, perennial and native pastures

  • what sort of sheep do you have on your farm? Katherine explained that her farm was very rocky as it was on the site of a former volcano so they had two types of sheep on their farm
    1. Coopworth Sheep from NZ which are bred for their meat and highly suited to rocky terrain
    2. Merino Sheep highly valued for their wool quality

  • the students asked her what she did every day and she talked about how no two days were the same and the variety of jobs on farm. She talked about how she loved working with and learning from her dad. And how she loved being able to take her dogs to work

Meet Lenny, Zip and Carly 

There were lots and lots of questions about Zip

  • The students wanted to know about the difference between human hair and wool

Katherine is very proud that her family has dedicated an area of their farm to protecting endangered native grasslands

“On my farm specifically we do a lot of work in conserving the native grasslands that remain on the property. These grasslands are part of the 1% of the volcanic grasslands that once stretched from Melbourne to near the SA border. We are very lucky to have these grasslands remaining – so we work with botanists and biologists to work out the best ways of preserving and improving these grasslands”

And the questions and answers continued

It was fascinating to be a fly on the wall watching 50 students queue up to ask Katherine questions

  • How do sheep sleep?
  • Is it muddy at your farm?
  • How long does wool grow?
  • Why does wool keep you both cool and warm?
  • Do sheep often get lost?
  • How many steps do sheep walk in one day?
  • How much water do sheep drink in one day?
  • How much grass do sheep eat in one day?
  • Are some sheep naughty?
  • Does wool grow as fast as hair?
  • How heavy do rams get?

Over the past two months our Young Farming Champions have spoken at science conferences across the world, they have presented to students across the Asia Pacific and over the next two weeks they will be talking to kindergarten students.

To have the confidence and capacity to reach such diverse audiences they have had a minimum of two years of intensive training. As Katherine found out its equally rewarding talking to six year olds as it it sharing scientific research.

As the below graphic and statistics show having role models like Katherine engaging with the next generation are pivotal to raising awareness that there is a career for them in agriculture.

As Pratley et al highlight employment offerings on-farm show no signs of declining or levelling off. (See above graphic) Rather, they have intensified. On-farm over the period of 2015 to 2021 inclusive, the demand for management personnel, based on internet advertisements, increased by over 160%
and for non-management staff by around 77%.

The increase for on-farm staff overall increased by 53% in 2021 over that for 2020. In agribusiness, i.e. off-farm professional employment, the demand increased by 44% over the six-year period and by 70% in 2021
over 2020.

These increases seem extraordinary.

The question we ask is are we leveraging all the opportunities we have at our disposal to engage with the next generation from K to 12 and beyond?

Are we ready to see it as a marathon not a sprint?

Are we ready for best practice?

You can read Katherine’s story in Graziher magazine here 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Mini-Me: How Paddock Pen Pals is creating junior Young Farming Champions

Three years ago teacher Zoe Stephens and Action4Agriculture program director Lynne Strong  introduced a new way of connecting school students with young professionals working in agriculture. Called Paddock Pen Pals the program utilised online audio and web conferencing to beam Young Farming Champions (YFC) directly into the classroom.

Paddock Pen Pals was launched at Sydney’s Carlingford West Public School, a large inner-west primary school with a high percentage of English-second-language students, where 300 Year 6 students gained insights into sheep and the wool supply chain from YFCs Danila Marini, Dione Howard, Sam Wan and Chloe Dutschke.

At the time Zoe Stephens was a teacher at Carlingford West:

“Many of my students have little time outside and have never visited a farm. In order to make their learning relevant, I wanted to connect them to real farmers to share what they have learnt and see what real farms are actually doing in Australia.”

Paddock Pen Pals has been an enormous success, particularly as COVID curtailed excursions and face-to-face interactions. It has involved a range of Young Farming Champions across diverse sectors of agriculture and inspired students from a diverse range of schools. Relationships forged in 2019 continue with Carlingford West Public School participating again this year.

Our relationship with Zoe Stephens has also continued. Zoe now delivers teaching and learning programs for the City Country Alliance of Schools and has recommended Paddock Pen Pals to 60 new schools. She has even written a Paddock Pen Pals Best Practice manual for teachers just as Young Farming Champion Emily May has written a manual for fellow YFC.

Recently Action4Agriculture  program director Lynne Strong introduced Zoe to A4A’s long-term friend and fellow farm blogger Alison Rutledge. Prior to her daughters starting school, Alison created KT’s Farm Life to connect young people in the city to the paddock through the eyes of her then 4 year old daughter

Since Alison’s daughters started school Alison has been coordinating kitchen gardening at St Raphael’s Catholic School at Cowra, in central-west New South Wales.

Keen to support Zoe’s work connecting country and city schools Alison devised Paddock Pen Pals with a twist. Influenced by our Young Farming Champions she asked her own daughters – Kaitlyn (KT) now 15 and Erin now 10 to create a video showing life on their farm with their 3000 sheep, 200 cows, 13 chooks and working dogs, showing typical activities such bottle-feeding poddy lambs, hay-feeding cattle and delivering new-born calves.

You can catch Kaitlyn and Erin’s wonderful version of Paddock Pen Pals here.

Beautiful new friendships are now being developed on the back of the video as students from different schools swap letters and share stories; a lasting legacy of the Paddock Pen Pals program and the Young Farming Champions who have inspired Mini-Mes.

 

by Action4Agriculture

Students from Carlingford West Public School find out what a farmer in the 21st century looks like

In 2019 when Zoe Stephens, science teacher at Carlingford West Public School, realised she had to teach her students about wool and sustainable fibres, she knew she needed to find an expert who could share real life experiences. So she trawled the internet looking for real-life farmers who may want to connect with her students. After plenty of maybes and half promises she came across Lynne Strong from Picture You in Agriculture and the Young Farming Champions, and Paddock Pen Pals was born.

Paddock Pen Pals beams Young Farming Champions from the paddock directly into classrooms using zoom, and this year six farmers joined the conversation at Carlingford West: Lucy Collingridge, Samantha Wan, Dione Howard, Katherine Bain, Danila Marini and Chloe Dutschke.

“Before we started I sat down with the Year 6 cohort [over 180 students] and asked them what they thought of when they pictured a farmer. You can imagine the comments – someone out in a field sucking on a bit of straw, big hat on and always a male. So then I said ‘next week you’ll actually get to chat with some farmers and they’re all young women’ and their mouths just hung open. It was amazing to have six young women to talk with us, particularly incredible because we are really breaking that stereotype of who is a farmer.”  Zoe says.

With 82% of careers in agriculture supporting farmers to produce food and fibre the stereotype is certainly changing.

All Young Farming Champions work in different parts of the wool industry: Chloe is a contract musterer, Lucy a biosecurity officer, Dione a veterinarian, Katherine a business analyst, Sam a wool broker and Danila a researcher, and all were paired with a separate Year 6 class for a half hour presentation.

“All our farmers had something different to offer and this broadened the students’ understanding of the industry beyond sheep growing wool. Our big question was how are our farming industries implementing sustainable practices and having a dedicated Young Farming Champion for each class meant the students got a very one-on-one conversation with these farmers and I think that gave them more connection with who they were talking with.” Zoe says

Big Question

“The kids were great,” Lucy says. “They had so many exciting questions and we had a great discussion about the sustainability of the wool industry with the kids who all knew about renewable resources and the unsustainable process to make man-made fibres.”

Sam showed the students a range of woollen products.

PPP Sam Refelction

Dione spoke about animal health

PPP Dione Student refelction

Danila described her research into virtual fences

Danila 2

Danila 1

There were lots of questions for Danila

Chloe amazed them with the size of her property (“She had 18,000 sheep,” was one student’s comment. “I thought there would be only around 20 and they would be kept in a big red barn with a little fence!”)

Katherine Bain 1

Katherine “introduced them to her sheepdog Zip and got to show them a video of sheep being moved in the yards which caused a lot of excitement!”

“One of my favourite quotes from the students, which I heard over and over again, was ‘she answered my questions. Afterwards I asked them to reflect and write down what they had learnt and I love the fact not one of them were the same. Everyone has taken away their own understanding from their own perspective.”  Zoe says. 

The students have now created a wool wall in their classroom

Wool Wall

The students will use their new-found perspectives as they create a project around waterway sustainability, and have strengthened their connection with their Young Farming Champions by promising to share with them the final products. Paddock Pen Pals has been an exceptionally effective way of connecting with real-life farmers and diving deep into the Australian wool industry. It will also hold the students in good stead as they tackle the 2020 Kreative Koala challenge.

For the Young Farming Champions, Paddock Pen Pals was another way to give back to the wool industry.

“I grew up only half an hour from Carlingford West – these students were me – and I had no idea about wool at their age,” Sam says. “I was excited to talk to the next generation of wool consumers about the benefits of wool and wool’s importance in Australia and of the career opportunities available. I even got a message from AWTA (the largest wool testing organisation) managing director, Michael Jackson, reminding me he went to Carlingford West, and then had a successful career in the wool industry!”

For Zoe, this was the second year she had participated in Paddock Pen Pals and although she feels she now has a strong understanding of the world of wool,

“there is no comparison between me standing up in front of the students and telling them what I know about wool to having an actual farmer, standing in a field, talk with them.”

For the students, they have had their queries answered by an expert and they now know what a farmer looks like.

 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Introducing the highly successful Paddock Pen Pals

PPP_Logo_RGB.jpg

Picture You in Agriculture (PYiA) in association with Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) has launched the new school-based program to connect students to Australian farmers and agriculture. Called Paddock Pen Pals the program utilises online audio and web conferencing programs to beam Young Farming Champions (YFC) directly into the classroom.

The concept has been used successfully in the past to take the schoolroom to the paddock, such as when YFC Emma Ayliffe used the technique with Parramatta Public School for The Archibull Prize. For teacher Esra Smerdon the experience brought a real-world connection to the students. “When we skyped with Emma she was able to show us how they used moisture probes to identify whether or not they needed to water and how they used that data to inform them,” she said. Read more about Emma’s interaction with Parramatta Public School here.

The Paddock Pen Pals program was launched recently at Sydney’s Carlingford West Public School where 300 Year 6 students gained insights into sheep and the wool supply chain from YFCs Danila Marini, Dione Howard, Sam Wan and Chloe Dutschke.

Carlingford West is a large inner-west primary school with a high percentage of English-second-language students.

“Many of my students have little time outside and have never visited a farm,” teacher Zoe Stephens said. “In order to make their learning relevant, I wanted to connect them to real farmers to share what they have learnt and see what real farms are actually doing in Australia.”

The first YFC to talk to the students via the big screen was CSIRO Sheep Researcher Dr Danila Marini who discussed animal wellbeing, virtual fencing and technology.

Danila Marini

Dr Danila Marini, UNE post-doctoral student, is researching the welfare implications of virtual fencing on sheep.

“The students were absolutely fascinated by the process of using digital technology like those new collars Danila is a part of, creating virtual fences,” Zoe said.

Carlingford West Public School with Dione Howard 2

The following day the students were introduced to Riverina Local Land Services District Veterinarian Dione Howard and again both students and teacher were enthralled.

“I think Dione may have inspired some students to become future vets,” Zoe said. “The medical equipment she showed the students was amazing; especially as they could identify that we use the same equipment for humans.”

Wool Technical Coordinator at Elders National Wool Selling Centre in Melbourne Sam Wan was the third YFC to Google Hangout with the students and she had an immediate connection, being herself a city-kid.

Sam Wan Carlingford West (5).jpg

“The students were amazed that someone like them, a city kid from another country, could become involved in the wool trade,” Zoe said.

The final YFC was Sheep Musterer Chloe Dutschke who beamed into the school direct from the vast plains of Hay, and the students were fascinated by the open spaces and huge areas.

 

One student commented:

“I always thought the sheep were just in a green little paddock.”

Paddock Pen Pals has given the students an opportunity to talk to real farmers about their daily life and to ask real-world questions about what they produce and how they work the land. In response the students are now making short movie-style presentations to share with their YFCs.

This pilot of Paddock Pen Pals at Carlingford West has been an immediate success with Zoe recommending the program to fellow teachers and congratulating all PYiA people involved:

“I want to extend a huge thank you to Lynne (Strong) and the wonderful farmers. Every farmer brought a unique perspective to our students and opened windows into the world of agriculture that they had never experienced. Highlights from the students were the virtual fencing collars, vet equipment and caring for a flock, looking at how wool is marketed and sold and viewing the great open spaces of Hay. Thank you for your time, enthusiasm and energy. When I asked the students to raise their hand if they enjoyed meeting a farmer every hand when up! That just doesn’t happen with Year 6.”

Thank you Zoe and Carlingford West Public School students our Young Farming Champions declared you were the highlight of their week

Update

The first Saturday on the Royal Easter Show provided the perfect opportunity for Paddock Pen Pals teacher Zoe Stephens from Carlingford West Public School and YFC Sam Wan and Dione Howard to meet face to face in the Sheep Pavilion.

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