A decline in ground level agricultural extension services and post-school training threaten to seriously shackle agriculture's chances in the fast emerging carbon economy.
If agriculture is going to transform with the technical capabilities needed to take advantage of carbon markets, or meet tough sustainability demands from customers, significant practical gaps need to be bridged, and soon.
While the sector could be rightly impressed with its research and development achievements and goals, Regional Australia Institute chief economist, Dr Kim Houghton, said "we're pretty bad at doing the extension thing".
He told this month's agricultural Outlook 2023 conference, regional Australia was woefully short on skilled people to support and help farmers - and others in the sector - make the most of industry transformational and money saving innovations.
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Unless the science and technology could be applied in the marketplace, the research bodies, tech businesses and universities behind ground breaking, time saving agtech tools were largely wasting their energy.
His comments coincide with survey findings by Farmers for Climate Action, which prompted its call for more on-ground staff, field days and government teaching programs to enlighten producers about carbon, climate and how to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The survey of more than 600 farmers found overwhelming support for reducing emissions, but respondents often did not know where to turn to find practical help or support services.
Livestock management software business, AgriWebb has also found, while 90pc of farmers felt new technology was important or very important, half those it recently surveyed were reluctant to get involved in carbon markets or sequestering initiatives because they wanted more credibility and maturity in this transforming aspect of the industry.
Extension shortfall
Dr Houghton said the farm sector appeared "way short of qualified agronomists and technical people to help technology adoption and support management change".
"You can buy all this electronic gear, high tech farm machinery and impressive data recording extras, but growers must absorb a lot of different stuff going in their businesses," he said.
"We know they won't make the most of new technology unless they establish personal relationships with people who understand a product or can demonstrate how to make the investment worthwhile.
"Once that trust is established, they'll keep returning to those extension specialists for advice on a whole host of different ideas and products."
It's quite hard to build that sort of trust remotely
- Kim Houghton, Regional Australia Institute
He said when producers wanted better results from their business they tended to mostly rely a lot on people with whom they already had, or could build, a trusted relationship.
"It's quite hard to build that sort of trust remotely," Dr Houghton said.
Cultivating farmer confidence and management efficiency not only lifted farm productivity and earnings, it flowed into regional community confidence, too, energising technical and social services available in surrounding towns.
His comments echoed similar observations from Elders managing director, Mark Allison, at last month's big agtech event evokeAg.
He cautioned about relying on specialists operating well away from the action to foster the technology uptake required on farms and in farm service industries.
"In many cases technology can't serve its purpose without humans being closely involved to apply it appropriately," Mr Allison said.
Invest in people
Dr Houghton said shortages of on-ground help and skills were not just an on-farm problem - "investment in regional people" was needed across the supply chain.
"We've had a shortage of food technologists for 20 years," he said.
"There's a lot of regional manufacturing demand for jobs - it grew six per cent last year."
The skills gap partly reflected burgeoning growth in the amount of smarter technology available to farmers and others, but also decades of declining government extension funding and shrinking options in regional areas for post-school technical skills training, including fewer apprenticeships.
"Privatisation of VET (vocational and education training) courses has seen that offering shrink or require participants to travel further, and we don't see the same breadth of apprenticeships and traineeships in regional areas as we once had," Dr Houghton said.
The federal government's 2019 Napthine Review into regional and remote education needs had identified a strong case for more training and university positions to meet demand for technology skills and other capacity building roles.
"But there's been no evidence the pool of funding available has grown - businesses see no increases in incentives or TAFE service to encourage them to train more apprentices."
Ironically, Dr Houghton noted innovative regional businesses were often at risk of losing the skilled people they successfully cultivated to metropolitan or overseas competitors.
This had been especially evident if the operation had an export market strength which made its employees vulnerable to poaching by rivals offering bigger pay rewards.
Whole govt guidance
National Farmers Federation chief executive officer, Tony Mahar, told Outlook 2023 the food and agriculture sector's transformation challenges needed a whole of government approach, similar to that seen in Britain and New Zealand.
He said big trade and reputational opportunities existed for Australia in the ag technology, carbon and sustainability categories if they could be fostered as part of a central government agenda.
"The federal agriculture department would seem the most obvious portfolio to oversee the action needed right now," he said.
"But the issues involved here are often well outside the Agriculture Minister's portfolio and he is already dealing with a plethora of responsibilities from biosecurity to climate issues."
Farmers for Climate Action CEO, Dr Fiona Davis, noted that with just 30pc of farmers having any practical understanding of how to shift to low emissions production a coherent national approach to climate change and agricultural policy was badly needed.
"We see a government role in providing support for famers by investing in emissions reduction technologies, and initiatives such as instant asset write-offs for renewable energy and on-farm energy storage."
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Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
