Farming should be valued more as a career choice
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From the Farm by Victoria Ballantyne
The same question keeps being asked. Where are the next generation of farmers and farm workers?
The education system does not see farming as a ‘profession’ or a ‘good career option’ and continues to encourage children to aspire toward white collar jobs, funnelling off those less academically inclined into ‘rural skills’ or ‘manual tech’ subjects.
This is not unique to the agricultural industry as any tradesman/woman will tell you. There is often a sentiment that kids these days just don’t want to work. This may be true of some, but I think many are just not encouraged to pursue a manual job.
Friends have told me their dyslexic son was written off by his school as ‘he was just going to be a farmer so there wasn’t much point working on his reading and writing’. This demonstrable ignorance of the complexities of an agricultural business is sadly not an isolated incident.
There is a job for everyone in agriculture and it is a hugely rewarding and challenging environment to work in. It needs those with knowledge and skills in mechanical engineering, animal husbandry, plants and crops, and people and business management.
We also require the best and brightest minds for the science, research and development that will continue to move it forward. There are great advances in technology and artificial intelligence that any bright mind will be stimulated by.
We’ve been enjoying Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm on TV which shows just how broad a skill set is needed to be a good farmer. His young tractor man Kaleb, who is ‘good at tractoring’, actually possesses an impressive amount of technical, practical and business knowledge, belying his initial, dim-country-boy charade.
Agriculture is taught to the equivalent of Advanced Higher in all Australian states. Many have also made food and fibre production a compulsory part of the primary school curriculum. Children understand where their food and clothing comes from and value farming as a profession. There has been some noise about introducing subjects in Scotland, but not enough interest from politics yet.
Speaking of Australia, most would have heard of the new trade deal. Perhaps I hold some bias as a native of the country, but Australia has always sent food to the EU under strict assurance schemes. Australian food is produced to a high standard because the public demand it. The threat of ‘cheap substandard imports’ seems incompatible with the recent minimum hourly wage rise to the equivalent of £11.
The main problem with this deal is that Westminster did not even attempt to protect UK agriculture, whilst demanding that it becomes carbon neutral and environmentally sustainable. In a bid to get any deal signed they did very little negotiating. The real worry now is what kind of deal might be done with other countries where cheap, environmentally questionable imports are a real possibility.
On a brighter note, we finished calving on June 12 – under seven weeks from start to finish which was a new record!
And we’re now enjoying plenty of grass growth and getting enough dry days to make some decent silage. Having made only 130 bales last year, we should make five times that this year setting us up well for the winter.
n Victoria and Jason Ballanytne run Clynelish Farm, Brora.
