… who decides?
Strikes me!
Who decides if You can have a high-paying career?
| In his Peppercorn column (Dangers of dealing with illusory wealth, The Land 19 March 2009), venerable agri-industry commentator Peter Austin, criticises the ‘push for new graduates who will only want to pursue paths towards high- paying careers’.
I can hardly believe he wrote that! Austin further writes ‘there are surely enough lawyers, economists and MBAs on the streets now to see us through for a generation’. Perhaps there are, but who is to say? More pointedly, who should decide whether your children, or mine or Peter Austin’s should be allowed to aim for the ‘high-paying career’ - along any path – as an MBA backed industrialist, master chef, actor, bio-entrepreneur, newspaper magnate or even as a politician? What is clear is these careers are based on educated thinking and clever new ways. From hands-on skills and education, they climb, learn and integrate. Australia’s needs the ‘settings’ to enable all of its people, especially the young, to aim as high as they can and they want in their learning and work. Whether this starts in a trade or history or science, finance or graphic arts, the skills marketplace will and should determine which of these young people can achieve their versions of a ‘high-paying career’.
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But likely not in Australian agricultural sectors. Austin’s observations will strike a chord in The Land, but they also reflect a long-time vibration from rural industries, that a part of the population should be destined and directed to fulfil its ‘labour’ requirements.
Austin writes, ‘surely what we really need is more trained technicians with industry-specific skills, and for that matter, more semi-skilled workers so we can repatriate some of the tens of thousands of jobs we’ve been pushing offshore, and perhaps restaff our hospitals, farms and switchboards’ … with ‘home grown workers’. What is this? A call for a government decree that some of us must staff a switchboard or a farm? Where’s the line? Should some people also be allocated to hand-sweep the streets? What if everyone in the upcoming generation is capable of so much more? No wonder agriculture struggles for a long-term, skilled workforce. As dinkum as the outdoors action might be painted, most can read the signs of a future downstairs ‘career’ in the shadow of power and traditions held close by the few who own ‘the land’. If agriculture, wants any of the ‘best and brightest’, or indeed, enough committed skilled managers, technologists or ‘semi-skilled’ workers, then the industry needs to shift its reward systems – higher-paying, yes, plus more status, power, involvement, sharing of returns, and a productive, interesting 50 year work-life horizon! Sandra J Welsman, April 2009 |
Frontiers Insight-Sandra Welsman – what we are doing | core work | plans. concepts. reviews | Global Regional Strategic | Frontiers Institute | working with groups on new associate degrees
Footnotes: I have tried to relay these thoughts before – perhaps not directly enough! Anyway, the numbers back my ongoing analysis.
Welsman: Submission to Inquiry into Rural Skills Training and Research, House Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, 2005.
Extract: “While agriculture should be a mainstay of the Australian economy and vital to regions all this century, for many young people (and their parents) tying a 50 year working future to agriculture alone would be a daunting idea. … Rural industries, leaders, employers and educators need to see cities as a major source of future talent and actively adjust attitudes. Australian agricultural industries risk becoming ‘closed cultures’ with shrinking pools of capability.
There are two sides to the city-country divide criticised by rural leaders. While bright young people from regions go to cities for careers in finance, communications, law or design, and are embraced by employers, a ‘from the land’ barrier appears to stand in the way of career-building in agriculture. Looking around, I see men who have given 30 plus years to research or services in agriculture, still located on the margins of rural industries, at times dismissed, rarely embraced. Family or corporate farm ownership seems to be a prerequisite to being a ‘player’ in agricultural industries. See for example the credentials listed for officers on agri-organisation websites. …
Without changes, it is difficult to responsibly advise any young city-person to favour a long-term career in agricultural production or processing, even in vet-science, or agriculture-business-law (areas with considerable work potential).”
Welsman (2008) Lateral Thinking on Skills for AgriFood Industries, Australian Farm Institute, Farm Policy Journal 5(3) 13-25.
Summary: “While industries worldwide chase ‘talent’, Australian agriculture seems fixed on ‘labour supply’. The key issue would be better described as ‘shortage of people willing to work in agricultural industries’. With this perspective, a set of questions is considered. What types of people and from where? To widen fields and to access cities, as surely as traditional boss-labour systems will fade, many other agri-industry ways also need rethinking. What types of work and skills – noting rising complexity in all workplaces? And, what forms of education – from need, supply, demand angles?
There are issues with current VET and higher education, so lateral thinking is vital to achieve modern training for a mix of needs. A unique, multi-skill Associate Degree -AgriFood Operations, is outlined. At the interface of VET and university, the AD-AFO looks to provide higher study and work interest, plus practical qualifications of status, flexibility and mobility – in order to attract a new-generation of the capable, integrative, aspiring, people that agri-industries need.”
Some references: National Farmers Federation, 2008, Labour Shortage Action Plan, also Summary of Labour Shortages in the Agricultural Sector. AgriFood Industry Skills Council 2008, Environmental Scan of the Agrifood Industries. National Farmers Federation, submission to Higher Education Review, 7. 2008.
“A guaranteed labour force that is appropriately skilled is crucial to the future success of farming. Although skilled labour shortages continue to represent a major problem for the agricultural sector, entry level positions are just as problematic but have not received nearly the attention that the skilled occupations have at the levels of both policy and practical initiatives.” NFF 7.08