An agricultural education

We always like to keep abreast of the latest farming and agricultural news at Field & Flower HQ. One topic that’s caught our attention this week is the issue of encouraging young people into the industry. Farmers Weekly recently ran an article about the possibility of a GCSE in agriculture being introduced into schools across the UK.

With Brexit looming it’s the right time to evaluate how we will continue to teach agriculture to the younger generations. It may well become harder to rely on seasonal labour from outside of the UK. This, combined with an ageing farming generation means that we need a plan for looking after the land, 70% of which is available for agricultural use.

Whilst we don’t currently work the land, James and I both studied agriculture at college for three years. When we both sat down for our first lecture we had walked in from very different backgrounds. James Flower had spent much of his childhood on the family beef farm, whereas I was one of only a few who had experienced a city upbringing.

The likelihood of someone leaving a city state school to study agriculture is still slim. It’s not a path that’s well-trodden. Interestingly, at agricultural college the percentage of master’s students with a city background was higher, mainly due to a re-evaluation of earlier career decisions. The idea of a GCSE in agriculture to capture the imaginations of younger generations is a fantastic one. With so much diversity it’s got something for everyone. Our agricultural degree covered business, mechanics, sciences (crop, soil and animal), finance and marketing.

The real discussion comes when thinking about access to farming. What happens post GCSE and degree? There are many offshoots of traditional farming routes, Field & Flower being a good example, but what about if you actually want to work on a farm, or perhaps even start an agricultural business from scratch? Farms stay within the family, and entry level jobs are not Instagram desirable.

This is where other nations are ahead of us. When I farmed in New Zealand the farming community were much more open minded than is typical in the UK. I worked with a young Kiwi without a farming background who was part of the share milker scheme. You effectively had help buying and building your own dairy herd. It was an innovative way to incentivise new entrants into farming and helped them onto the agricultural ladder. He may not have owned a milking parlour, but his cows were his own.

The future of farming relies on our industry welcoming the younger generation through the farm gate. It won’t always be perfect and of course no one will ever know as much as the farmer that has stood on the land. However, we need innovation and new blood, but more than anything we need to give the younger generations a chance.