It’s all over bar the shouting, and 2015 will go down in history as a big year for landmark FTAs – one signalling unprecedented access to the biggest consumer market on Earth.

We wouldn’t go so far to say it’s been a victory across the board for Australian agriculture, but June’s Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ChaFTA for short) and October’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are set to usher in a new era of prosperity and growth in many key sectors. It looks likely that agriculture’s great white hope, sugar, will stay where it is for now, but who knows what the future will hold?

China-Australia Free Trade Agreement

After 10 years and much negotiation, ancient trade barriers finally buckled when then-PM Tony Abbott and China’s commerce minister Gao Hucheng signed on the dotted line in Canberra.

Demand for food in middle-class China is off the charts and Australia has the means to feed them. The only thing in the way were tariffs. Big ones. ChAFTA goes a long way to opening up the market for agriculture and processed foods, with equal or better access to China than any other FTA partner. Tariffs on some exports will be reduced by up to 30%. Let’s take a look at what’s going down and by how much:

And the winners are:

Beef: tariffs of 12-25 per cent will be wiped out within 9 years of entry into force.
Dairy: all tariffs (currently up to 20 per cent) will be eliminated within 4-11 years. *Translation: we predict big things for infant formula (Aussie brands are in hot demand in China) and ice cream in particular.
Horticulture: tariffs of up to 30% on fruit, vegetables and nuts will be eliminated, most within 4 years. *Translation: macadamias, almonds, walnuts and pistachios will shed their 10-25% tariff. The 11-30% tariff on oranges, mandarins, lemons and all other citrus fruits will also be peeled off.
Sheep and goat meat: tariffs of 12-23 per cent will be gone within 8 years.
Pork: all tariffs (up to 20 per cent) will be scratched within 4 years.
Hides and skins: tariffs of 5-14 per cent will be eliminated within 2-7 years.
Wine and spirits: in four years, tariffs of 14-20 per cent on wine and up to 65 per cent on alcoholic beverages and spirits will be a thing of the past. *Translation: wine imports are booming in China, which could well be a boon for our esteemed Aussie winemakers.
Seafood: tariffs on all seafood exports will be eliminated within 4 years. Including tariffs of up to 15% on fresh abalone and rock lobster within 4 years.
Honourable mentions: barley and sorghum, a range of processed foods and wool also secured victories.

Better luck next time:

Hopes were high, but no inroads were made for sugar or rice growers. The chairman of Canegrowers Queensland told news.com.au: “It’s disappointing given that it’s a huge market. We only wanted to fill in the gap between their domestic production and consumption, but we didn’t gain much traction except a framework for further reviews.”

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

Eight years of debate was finally put to bed last month when 12 Pacific Rim nations signed the biggest free-trade agreement in history, covering 40% of the global economy. We now have agreements in place with countries where previously there were none – Peru, Mexico and Canada. What does this mean for agriculture? Thousands of tariffs will be removed. Not quite as many as hoped, but nothing to be sniffed at.

And the winners are:

Dairy: The TPP clinched victories for Aussie cheese – the deal spells the end of tariffs on some products and paves the way for tariff reductions and new quota allocations for others.
Grains: The TPP will create new quota volumes for wheat and barley exports to Japan (worth approximately $481 million in 2014). Tariffs on exports of Australian wheat and barley will be no more, and the TPP also means new quota access for roasted malt exports.
Rice: It was a no-go zone in ChaFTA, but the TPP will see a new 6000-tonne quota access to Japan, plus reduced tariffs on rice preparation products, plus an amendment to the WTO quota of an extra 60,000 tonnes of medium grain rice for processing use.
Wool and cotton: All remaining tariffs on Australian raw wool and cotton exports to TPP countries will be removed. The TPP will also deliver improved rules of origin for textiles, potentially upping demand for Australian fibre products.

Better luck next time:

Dairy: They say it’s best to shoot for the Moon, but some were disappointed in the dairy deal – saying it failed to live up to its full potential of total tariff elimination.

Did you know?

Australia currently has 9 FTAs up and running and 7 more under discussion

*NB: ChaFTA’s status is ‘signed’ and TPP’s is ‘negotiations concluded’.

Rural employers and Working Holiday Visa holders are concerned about proposed Working Holiday Visa income tax changes. 

Proposed changes to the income tax rules for the Working Holiday Visa (WHV) announced in the last Federal Budget sparked outcry among both Working Holiday Visa holders and the sectors who employ them the most – Tourism and Agriculture.

As the 1st of July 2016 approaches, we outline the changes, the expected effects, and the potential outlook for rural employers.

THE CHANGES: A SUMMARY

No more tax-free threshold

Previously, backpackers who were residents for tax purposes (they lived and worked in Australia for more than 183 days) weren’t required to pay tax for the first $18,200 they earned.

Higher tax rates

Once they’d earned $18,200 or more, they paid 19 cents on every dollar above this figure, following standard resident-status tax rules. If the proposed changes are passed, from 1st July 2016 they will be paying 32.5 cents from the very first dollar they earn.

No more resident status

Because they will be taxed as non-residents regardless of how long they stay, backpackers will no longer benefit from trying to reach the 183-day requirement.

WHAT WORKING HOLIDAY VISA MAKERS CURRENTLY CONTRIBUTE

As noted by ATEC Managing Director Peter Shelley and others, backpackers visiting Australia on 417 visas spend $13,000 during their time here. Annually, this equates to around $2.6 billion in economic injection.

These working holidaymakers also provide much-needed labour to remote Australia, particularly to the agricultural and hospitality sectors.

Thanks in no small part to the 88-day rural requirement (to qualify for a second year on their visa, they must do at least this much rural work), backpackers have proven to be an appreciated source of motivated labour for the rural, hospitality and tourism sectors.

THE DEBATE

The response to these tax changes – from both the public and the stakeholders – has been largely pessimistic.

That’s not to say that the potential contributions from working holidaymakers won’t contribute much-needed tax dollars, but many still see the changes as a short-term solution with long-term ramifications.

Tourism & Transport Forum CEO Margy Osmond called the move a “backward step” and an “own goal”, saying it would “damage Australia’s international reputation.”

The general sentiment elsewhere is similar, with many commenters and even politicians complaining that this policy is effectively penalising backpackers for not being residents.

Some have called the proposal a short-sighted money grab that doesn’t consider the long-term detriment to Australia’s international appeal as a working holiday destination.

We must note that 417 visa holders are working holidaymakers – not just workers. The idea of the visa is to enable them to supplement their travel funds while experiencing Australia. While some suggest that taxing them at a non-resident rate is simply a reflection of the fact that they are indeed visitors, others suggest that it will impact their desire to come to Australia in the first place.

The actual effects of this policy change remain to be seen – and with a new treasurer now in office, who knows if things will revert to the way they previously were.

THE IMPACT ON RURAL AUSTRALIA

As mentioned before, the 88-day requirement has been a boon to the agricultural industry.

We are lucky to live in a country where travellers are so in love with it that they will happily spend three months (or more) living out in remote areas, performing often difficult and strenuous work.

Along with the ongoing exodus of working-age Australians from rural areas, these travellers have helped to revitalise rural communities while offering affordable labour to our understaffed agricultural producers.

It has been suggested that a reduction in these WHV staff will cause a reduction in labour availability, which will in turn impact farmers and farming communities.

This theory makes sense on the surface, but we simply won’t know until we get the figures back from Immigration and the ATO next year.

Anecdotal reports do however show that backpacker-focused online forums and social networks immediately latched onto news of the ex-Treasurer’s proposed changes, but again, we can’t comment on the real-world consequences until they occur.

The Agri Labour Australia team are more than aware of the current rural labour shortage, so it concerns us when things like this come up. But that doesn’t mean there are no solutions.

No matter what happens in the halls of Canberra, we will continue to work on and develop new opportunities and alternatives for remedying the agricultural labour shortage.

From field deployment to farm employment: The Agri Veterans Program

As you may be aware, Agri Labour Australia has recently partnered with veteran-run charity Walking Wounded to help place returned military personnel in agricultural careers.

Through the Agri Veterans Program, our mutual aim is to help ex-Defence Force members make the transition back to civilian life, and to provide a framework on which to build not just a job, but a new career, purpose and path.

The benefit for returning troops comes in the form of stable, rewarding employment opportunities that match their existing skill sets. And for the agricultural industry, it means a source of skilled and dedicated staff helping to counteract the ever-worsening labour shortage.

More than just a job

At the core of the Agri Veteran Program is the idea that the majority of ex-ADF jobseekers don’t just want a job – they want a career with a sense of purpose.

Every time we speak to a veteran, one thing comes through loud and clear: the transition back to civilian life is tough on many levels – especially when looking for employment.

When you factor in physical and psychological wounds, it is clear that some careers are more suitable than others.

It occurred to us that agriculture fit the bill better than many other options. Farming could provide veterans with real-life career opportunities in peaceful surroundings and with a sense of purpose.

Embracing rehabilitation

It is a sad fact that some veterans suffer disadvantages – especially when looking for work – due to the stigmas attached to the physical and psychological traumas they may have suffered during and after their deployments.

It’s therefore important to place ex-service people in roles with understanding employers who are willing to help them through the difficulties they may be experiencing. This is central to Walking Wounded’s purpose as an organisation, and with a recruitment company like Agri Labour Australia by its side, it can better achieve this goal.

Regional Australia – a perfect environment?

When we talk about finding appropriate employment for our ex-military jobseekers, it is clear that regional Australia is well suited in many ways.

Upon their return from service, the majority of ADF personnel remain in the towns and cities where their barracks are located. Feedback suggests that this isn’t an ideal situation as the pace of the city life is difficult to adjust to on return from deployment.

Regional and rural areas, on the other hand, offer a tranquillity and sense of community that is lacking in built-up areas; the peace and community spirit of the country makes it a nice place to be, and the outdoor lifestyle appears to fit many veterans well.

Giving veterans the opportunity to live, work and build a life in regional Australia is therefore a logical solution to their employment concerns.

The only thing to do now is to find them rural jobs that match their skills. Fortunately, this isn’t an issue.

Matching skills with opportunities and openings

Agriculture and related industries offer a wide range of appropriate jobs that closely match veterans’ existing skills.

From un-skilled and semi-skilled roles to technical and supervisory positions, agriculture features a large number of opportunities that veterans can almost walk straight into.

These roles could include machinery operation and maintenance, logistics and transport, livestock, storage & handling, among others. Ex-military personnel are already familiar with deadlines, discipline, checks and balances, teamwork, shared goals, and so on – all of which make them a fitting choice for rural employers.

The good news for farmers is that this solves a problem that has been plaguing them for years: the labour shortage.

The continuing exodus of rural youth to the cities and mines has caused a drought of skills and manpower that our troops are perfect to fill, whether their background is in engineering or electronics.

Agri Labour Australia has therefore decided to team up with Walking Wounded to identify jobseekers, match them to appropriate roles, and help them on the path to a new life and career in the country.

We hope that this initiative will help to breathe new life into our agricultural industry while giving new opportunity to our returned soldiers.

Get involved with the Agri Veteran Program

Employers – If you’re an employer who would like to know more about the Agri Veteran Program, please get in touch with us on 1800 247 823

Veterans – For more information on the program, please contact one of our recruitment specialists on 1300 247 823, or for other support please get in touch with Walking Wounded on 0432 398 827.

Humans learned how to cultivate crops around 10,000 years ago. This massive step brought us from being primitive hunter-gatherers to being able to reliably grow food and textiles, live in villages and towns, and create lifestyles that involved a lot more than foraging.

From those early days until the mid-1700s, farming remained more or less the same. But thanks to the last two centuries of technological development, we now have everything from pesticides to GM crops – and of course robots.

These machines, whether we like it or not, play an ever-increasing role in food and fibre production. In the US,the agricultural workforce has already fallen from 40% to 2% of total employment over the last century.

Now imagine what it’ll be like in another hundred years.

Agriculture’s shrinking workforce

If history is anything to go by, we’re going to see a lot fewer people doing unskilled agricultural work over the coming decades.

And as their numbers decline, we’re going to see a movement of campaigners and lobby groups trying to prevent jobs from disappearing. This has already happened in the automobile industry.

You’d expect that agricultural labour hire and recruitment companies like Agri Labour Australia would be worried about what the future holds; after all, if there are no jobs, there’s no need for candidates or recruiters.

But actually, that’s not quite the case. We are of course concerned, but we’re more optimistic than worried.

This might surprise you, so let us explain.

Productivity means profit

First, let’s take a look at why we use machines and robots in the first place.

There’s one main reason: productivity. The most obvious reason to use machines is that they work faster and more reliably than people, which in turn makes them more profitable over the long term.

For example, poultry farming hasn’t seen much of a downside. Dedicated egg-collecting machines have brought automation to this traditionally labour-intensive role, which has helped free up farmers’ time and increase their margins.

Profitable farmers mean a healthy agricultural industry, and that’s a good thing. But at what cost?

Machines do replace workers, but not always for the reason you think.

Profit and productivity aren’t the only reason machines are replacing people – in Australia, many farming businesses use machines because the access to labour simply isn’t there, for example in fruit picking. There’s also the fact that in some agricultural roles, human hands bring the best results.

Without the required workforce available to them, farmers are forced to invest in machines. These machines might not give the same quality results, but they have no other choice.

What’s more, this equipment is prohibitively expensive for many smaller-scale producers, although they do reduce labour overheads in the long term. So we see family-run farms going out of business or being forced into costly equipment hire agreements that eat away at their margins.

A tough choice for farmers

To stay in the game, farmers therefore have a decision to make. Do they protect their human workers, or do they spend the money upfront and invest in technology?

One thing is for certain: as technology develops, the face of the agricultural workforce will have to change. There’s no use in fighting automation, so the only option is to embrace it, and to try to put ourselves on the right side of history.

Focus on what robots can’t do

There will always be roles that robots can’t fill. We may one day have machines that can hand-pick berries without damaging them, or that can pick the ripe fruit from the branch while leaving the unripe ones.

To meet the needs of farmers and the consumers they feed, the workforce will have to change what part of the supply chain it services. We may see more skilled workers who, instead of doing the actual picking, are operating the picking machines or grading the produce.

What we would like to see is an increase in semi-skilled and skilled roles, which will be great for the industry and the regions in which they operate. We are already suffering from a dire shortage of unskilled and semi-skilled staff, so any influx of better-qualified people will be great for rural communities.

We have to look at the future as an opportunity. We must invest in training and education for our producers and agricultural workers, and we must give them the knowledge and tools to embrace technology and meet the new demand for technically proficient staff.

An opportunity for change and growth

If you’d asked a 1960s office-job recruiter about computers, they would’ve told you that clerks were an indispensible part of the professional workforce. It’s true – they were.

But since then, we haven’t seen a generation of clerks go hungry because there’s no work for them. They up-skilled, learned how to use computers, and helped contribute to the further growth and evolution of clerical roles.

What about the human cost?

On the other side of the coin, we might take the example of the car industry replacing factory staff with robots. The loss of thousands of jobs is a real and painful truth, but we have to also consider that consumer trends and competitive performance rely on getting the most of out our manufacturing. Fighting these hard truths won’t make them untrue – it’s time that could be spent more productively.

Agriculture mustn’t follow this example. We need to be able to compete with other nations and continue making the best food and fibre we can – and we need to be able to sell it at a competitive price.

If this means that some of our manual roles become obsolete, there’s nothing we can do to fight it. Instead, let’s look at helping to further train and educate our unskilled staff so that their passion and skills can be put to use elsewhere in the supply chain.

The future is bright!

We see a future where robots and humans work in harmony. We mustn’t allow ourselves to fight progress in our industry. We should be at the forefront, providing the manpower that will drive Australian agriculture into the next era.

Foreign investment in Australian agriculture is a polarizing issue. Much more than just a debate among the agricultural community, it is now a high-stakes political one too.

At the centre of the furore is the government’s recent changes to the way the Foreign Investment Review Board is now looking at foreign entries into land and business interests, which is either going too far, or not doing enough, depending on which camp you listen to.

The second major change is the introduction of a comprehensive register of all foreign-owned land assets. This is generally praised as a step in the right direction, as it gives the industry a better understanding of who owns what, and in what proportions.

So why all the debate? Surely the government has Australian farmers’ best interests at heart?

To shed a little light on the situation, we’d like to share our own experiences of what the farmers on the land are actually doing and saying.

When times are tough, any opportunity is better than none

The Agri Labour Australia team spend a lot of time talking to primary producers about their businesses. In the course of our dealings with them, a pattern has emerged, and it speaks directly to the issue of investment – to be precise, where this investment is coming from.

To put in bluntly, there is an overwhelming majority of farmers (especially smaller, family-run operations) that are feeling the pinch, and in the absence of local Aussie investment injections, they’re turning to foreign investors.

We’ve seen a noticeable rise in farmers – often 3^rd, 4^th or 5^th generation farmers – banding together to form consortiums. They want to increase their land size and portfolio, giving them a better chance of securing foreign investment.

The old notion of the co-operative is alive and well. Where agricultural operators have been struggling to pay down their debt and remain profitable, foreign investment now gives them the breathing space they need. It’s a second chance: a fresh start.

No one can argue that farmers aren’t within their rights to source funding from wherever they can. And yet this is where the political debate is occurring.

Some say it’s great to inject foreign capital and breathe new life into our agricultural industry, while others say we’re selling the farm.

Are we ‘selling the farm’?

The term ‘selling the farm’ is an extremely simplistic way of looking at this issue. In some cases, yes, farmers are selling portions of their land or business holdings to keep cash flowing.

This has been happening forever, and so has foreign investment in Australian agriculture. It seems that the root of the uproar isn’t because farmers are selling assets – it’s because they aren’t selling them to Australians.

Maybe some of them are ‘selling the farm’. But if buyers aren’t coming from within Australia, where are our farmers to turn?

The bigger political picture

Once we start talking about large swathes of our economy, it’s inevitable that politicians get involved.

For example, Bob Katter has put himself in the middle of the debate, stating that this is now a political issue and that the only solution is political.

Katter criticises the Sino-Australian Free Trade Agreement, saying that Chinese workers are allowed into Australia to work at unregistered Chinese-owned farms. He says that neither major party is standing up for Aussie farmers.

This is where it gets confusing. If farmers are themselves choosing to accept foreign investment, aren’t they standing up for themselves already? Aren’t they aware of the benefits and risks involved in bringing large-scale foreign interests into Australia’s food bowl?

Aside from our little guys teaming up to secure investment, what about huge companies like S. Kidman & Co also hunting foreign buyers? What about their portfolio of 11 cattle stations, including the 23,000 square km Anna Creek Station (the largest in the world) going to a Chinese buyer?

When this amount of money and food security is involved, it’s no wonder that this has become such a politicised issue.

Is foreign ownership such a big deal?

Much of Australian agriculture’s recent success has come from new markets such as Indonesia, and elsewhere in South East Asia. Net export means revenue, and this is what we’ve seen.

However, some are fearful that we’re giving too much of our assets away. They’re worried that everything will be snapped up by foreign money, and all those profits will start being funnelled out of Australia.

This is a legitimate concern, and it’s why the ATO’s land register has been implemented. Until the final figures come back, all we have to go on is the ABS.

In it’s last Agricultural Land and Water survey (which was criticised by some), the ABS reported that just under 90% of all farmland is owned by Australians, while 99% of businesses were fully Australian owned. No statistically significant number of Aussie farmers have water access issues either.

At the moment, most Aussie farms are still Aussie-owned and Aussie-run, but this isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing – it’s just the current state of the industry. And it varies from sector to sector, from grain to dairy, from fruit to cattle.

When you get to the bottom of this issue, it becomes clear that the arguments are more about economic protectionism than about protecting farmers’ ability to make ends meet.

Let’s not forget about the farmers

If a farmer sells off some of his assets to a foreign buyer (and getting to that stage is within itself an achievement) then he’ll have to take their interests into account.

He’ll need to have all his books together, he’ll need tighter budgeting and cashflow planning, he’ll need measurable marketing, and the list goes on. In short, he’ll need to operate at the business-oriented level that his investors demand.

In the long run, this can only be a good thing, at least operationally. But the price he’ll pay is that he’ll see less share in the profits, and he’ll have less control over the decision making.

Again, it comes down to the source of the money. If it cannot be found in Australia – then he has no choice but to look overseas unless he wants to go broke and shut up shop.

From a bank’s perspective, having a foreign investor is a form of mitigating risk. It means they aren’t the only one with equity at stake. Some say that the injection of foreign money is a shot in the arm that’ll help our farmers stay afloat – and they seem to agree.

Which is more important: the farmer or the industry?

Perhaps we’re looking at this from the wrong angle. Perhaps the government should be doing more to protect farmers from making short-term decisions with long-term ramifications.

What we do know is that the future for Australian agriculture is going to be busy. As the food bowl for Asia and beyond, we’re going to have to meet an increasing level of demand.

The introduction of the foreign land ownership register is a good step towards finding out where we stand right now, but the decisions it helps make in the future need to account for not just the industry, but the farmers too.

Agri Labour Australia has earned a place as an official finalist in the 2015 Telstra Business Awards.

Competing in the Queensland Small Business category, Agri Labour Australia is accompanied by five other great businesses from the Sunshine State.

Telstra Business Group Managing Director and Telstra Business Awards Ambassador Will Irving said the Queensland finalists are a “unique group of businesses making an important contribution to local communities… as well as the state economy.”

The winners of the 2015 Telstra Queensland Business Awards will be announced at the Sofitel Brisbane on 30 July.

Queensland winners will then proceed to the national Awards, which will be held in Sydney on the 20^th of August.

Agri Labour Australia Managing Director Casey Brown said he was excited to be recognised in the Queensland finalists stage.

“It’s humbling to have made it into the finals. We’re up against some impressive businesses, and I can’t wait to find out how it all turns out,” he said.

The full list of Queensland Small Business finalists is available on the 2015 Telstra Queensland Business Awards webpage.

Australia’s population and workforce are growing in both number and average age. It’s estimated that within 40 years or so, there will be 38 million of us, with more than double the current proportion of people aged 75 and over (6.4 to 14.4%).

This demographic shift will pose big problems for the Australian economy. Pensions, healthcare and aged care spending will require an extra 6% of national GDP that doesn’t yet exist, and this number will keep going up.

With ongoing improvements in national health and work fitness, people are expected to work longer into their later years. However, for older and returning workers, gaining employment isn’t easy.

The fact is that in most of Australia’s labour markets, there’s an unspoken but very real culture of preferential hiring based on age – and it’s causing the fastest-growing segment of our workforce to go to waste.

However, there’s one industry that already embraces older workers, and that would benefit greatly from a timely injection of ready, willing and able employees. That industry is agriculture, and it has the oldest average worker age in Australia: 53 years old.

Mature workers and agriculture: A perfect fit?

The general consensus among rural employers and labour providers is that mature workers are a better fit for regional (and particularly agricultural) employment.

The main reasoning behind this opinion is, to put it bluntly, the fact that older generations are generally more accustomed to hard work.

These workers grew up in a different generation than the current youth; they understand and appreciate the land and what it means to Australia. Typically, they know someone, or someone that knows someone, who worked the land growing up.

Compared to the current youth labour pool, mature workers also demonstrate a phenomenal work ethic – there’s lower absenteeism, lower turnover, and a higher commitment to performing in tough conditions. This doesn’t mean there is not a significant number of young workers who work hard, but the trend certainly points to older generations being especially well suited to the rigorous demands of agricultural work.

Mature workers who genuinely appreciate how important agriculture is for this generation and the next are, in the long term, an indispensible educational and opinion-leading resource. They need to pass on their message to influencers and younger generations if agriculture is going to survive into the future.

We must however be careful not to over-generalise, in my experience I’ve found there to be three main types within the mature worker demographic working in the agricultural industry.

The 3 types of mature worker:

1. Lifelong workers
2. Relocated mature workers
3. “Super Boomers”

Lifelong workers are those who have stayed in the country and have grown up on the land. They possess a unique skillset and are the main contributors to the high average age in rural employment.

Relocated mature workers are those who come from other areas; they don’t usually possess the same rural skillset as the lifelong workers, though they would have some relevant skills and experience from past work – especially if they previously worked in a trade or production-related role.

Super Boomers are coming from a different financial and/or socio-economical place than the lifelong or relocated workers. They are sea changers who are more interested in seeing the country and living a free, unencumbered lifestyle than in relocating specifically for work.

Harnessing the mature workforce

It is clear that the demand for rural labour is far greater than what our lifelong workers can accommodate.

The ageing population in rural and regional Australia isn’t due to older workers flocking to the country; it is the result of younger jobseekers evacuating these areas in search of other opportunities.

A key driver of this migratory trend is the ongoing PR and reputational crisis surrounding regional and rural work and culture (hard yakka for little reward), while on the other side of the coin there have in recent years been almost endless opportunities for work in the resources sector, particularly in high-paying FIFO roles.

To effectively address rural labour shortages, it is necessary to harness the super boomers and mature jobseekers who are willing to relocate.

These workers’ comparative age and freedom as compared to younger employees is a bonus. They are largely unencumbered, they need or want to work, and they have a wealth of experience and enthusiasm.

Rural employers need to embrace the situation at hand

While mature jobseekers from towns and cities can experience barriers when applying for work, regional employers don’t appear to subscribe to these same types of preconceptions.

In agriculture, mature workers are the norm. It’s therefore important for rural employers to continue to embrace them and make the most of the situation at hand.

Health is improving, fitness for work is improving, and yet the agricultural labour shortage is not improving. The young are flocking to the cities and mines, and our willing mature jobseekers are being turned away often on the basis of their age.

Agri Labour Australia is 100% behind older workers getting back into the saddle, and in helping promote their value to employers throughout the agribusiness and food supply chain. If they are going to be healthier for longer, and if they want the work, it’s a no brainer.

If you are a mature worker looking for regional work to suit your terms, your needs and your lifestyle, enquire within and we will do all we can to help you continue to demonstrate your unique value to our nation.

As young Australians who work in the Agricultural sector, myself and my brother are a rarity. We aren’t special and we don’t think we are, but we’re part of a dying breed: young Aussies who still work in ag.

The labour shortage in rural Australia isn’t a recent development – it’s a chronic blight that worsens every year, and it’s proving hard to treat.

According to the ABS, the median age of ag workers is now 53 years, compared to the national average of 40. This is a huge difference.

This figure looks even more worrying when we consider that we don’t have enough young successors to replace our ageing workforce when they retire.

To understand how to address this issue, we have to look at what’s causing it. And when we do, the harsh but simple way of framing it is with two words: money and careers.

Money

Globalisation, maturation of our economy and Australia’s growth as a professional centre are all good things. However, this positive direction with its uni degrees, great pay and air-conditioned office jobs has sapped a lot of our young workforce.

So-called ‘rural’ work also pays excellently if you work in the resources sector, and this financial incentive has consistently drained much of our young and ambitious talent over the last decade or more.

I’m not faulting anyone on their choices – considering the options, it seems like a good decision. They can either buy or work on a farm, suffering through long hours and tight profit margins, or they can jump on a FIFO plane and be on six digits without so much as a machine ticket.

The problem is that the part about “long hours and tight profit margins” isn’t really true or representative of what an ag career is. Which leads me to the next issue.

Careers

For the most part, the general public simply don’t ‘get’ what a career in ag is – including many kids who are from the country themselves.

“Agriculture” isn’t “farming”. Or I should say, it isn’t just farming. It’s the entire food production and supply chain, from lab research on grain varieties to industrial designers and engineers creating efficient harvesting machinery.

It even includes recruitment companies who help supply the workforce that keeps the industry moving.

But the public – young or old, urban or rural – don’t seem to understand this. When they think of agriculture, they think of wise and weathered old blokes like the guy on the Bega commercial.

They don’t think of the opportunities in ag (maybe because they don’t hear about them), especially the non-financial ones, like work-life balance, the fulfilment you feel as a food provider, or growing to appreciate the land that we call home.

What ag needs

Is a healthy, well-staffed ag sector an unobtainable pipe dream? I don’t think so. If I did, I wouldn’t be doing what I do.

I do think it will need some work to get it going though. Some organisations like the NFF are doing a stellar job of promoting ag to the youth market, but just like any cause-related initiative it seems that the correlation between PR/advertising budgets and success is more than coincidental.

That said, here’s my humble opinion on what our ag sector needs:

As many brilliant minds have already established well before me, education is the key: education of the public, and formal education for the next generation of ag professionals.

I’d like to see the media focus less on portraying the old-fashioned storybook version of ag, and instead focus on the modern, multi-disciplinary industry that it is today.

We as a nation need to look at the ag sector’s successes. All we seem to hear about is the doom and gloom. I understand that only certain types of stories sell, but for the sake of our nation’s food security and rural communities, I’d like to see us paint a more balanced picture of what a career in our sector is.

I’m not leaving the farmers out either – they are the people that put food on our plates. However, unless you’re born into it, farming isn’t a cheap industry to get into, and unless you know how to run a farm, the learning curve can be unforgiving.

But aren’t these challenges the same for any business? Thousands of young tradies and uni graduates get out there and start their own businesses every year. Maybe the government could put some money into incentivising young Australians into owning profit-turning farms. They’re already doing it for first homes; it’s worth thinking about.

As for formal education, certain interest groups and NGOs are doing their part to promote our industry via scholarships and foundations. This is a great start, and it’s something I’d love to see more of.

I would however suggest one tweak: these uni’s and training organisations need to recategorise “agriculture”. As a blanket term, we already know it doesn’t conjure up the right image in people’s minds. Maybe they should be putting more ag-related courses as electives within major non-ag degrees. At the moment we’ve got Ag Science… and that’s about it.

We have a long and hard road ahead of us. Myself, my brother and our company are trying to do our part to keep Aussie farms well staffed and profitable, but in the end we’re just a drop in the ocean.

I’m not simply throwing my hands up and asking the government, uni’s and media to fix our ailing industry either.

I’m asking the whole country to fix it, one step at a time. We like to dream big, us country boys.

Agri Labour Australia would like to congratulate fellow Darling Downs business, Total Ag Services, for their success in winning the Agri Labour Australia sponsored Agriculture Services Award at the Lowes Petroleum Business Awards.

Total Ag Services were selected as winners from a diverse field of industry service providers.

The event provided a fantastic occasion to showcase the outstanding achievement of local businesses in the Goondiwindi region.

Agri Labour Australia Managing Director, Casey Brown was proud to sponsor the local business event.

“Being from Goondiwindi myself, the strength of local business on the Darling Downs is something that is truly important to me on a personal level. It’s brilliant to see the success of the small business community in Goondiwindi, with so many people working hard to innovate and improve the Ag sector,” said Mr Brown.

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