News

Preparing the next generation for a future in agriculture

By Nicola Ceccato

Jun 13, 2023

Pest free: Students learning about investigating pests in orchards. Photo by Contributed

On May 26, 400 Year 9 and 10 students from across northern Victoria gathered at the University of Melbourne Dookie campus to participate in the annual Food and Fibre Careers Day.

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The event focuses on presenting career pathways in food and fibre production to secondary school students.

Karen Edwards is an organising committee member for the event and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and said the event showed how much of a demand there was for more agriculture workers.

“We had 22 different workshops available on the day,” she said.

"We’re getting the students at a time where they’re starting to think about school subjects and having a lot of career talks at school, and we want to plant the seed about how agriculture is a good career option for all kinds of people.

“We wanted this event to be more industry involved, where we have industries engaging with young people so that conversation starts between them and the people that might employ them.

“The agriculture industry are crying out for people and have been for a long time, and I’ve been at the university for 10 years now and the stats are saying that for every university agriculture graduate, there’s five jobs.”

From insect farming to carbon farming or animal health, there was a wide range of career options to choose from for the students.

Here are some contributed pictures from the day.