Young People into Farming- How do we do it?
I have read a few articles lately
around new and renewed initiatives to encourage young people into the farming
industry.
It is a major problem for farming
whether it’s dairy, beef, sheep or cropping etc: the average age of a famer is
right in the target demographic of a Winston Peters rally (grey power).
Any initiative is good, but I am
of the view that most come too late as they focus only on kids about to leave
or have left school, or in the early teens or the young unemployed.
We have a major disconnect today
between farmers and what we call townies.
Increasingly the majority of people living in cities have very little or
indeed no contact with a farm or farmers.
In the past it seemed most city children had an uncle aunty grandfather
etc that were farming whom they would
visit regularly, stay with or indeed spend much of their school holidays on the
farm. It is from such experiences that a
city child catches the bug, the passion to want to be farmer. Without such an experience a child is
unlikely to enter the industry, as farming like all professions, is about your passion
for it (if you are to be good at it);
yes you need to make a living and hopefully a good one, but if you don’t
have a passion for it, money alone won’t keep you in the industry.
This brings to me an idea I have
had for a while and would like to see developed: namely a competition that is
split into two age groups (if a success, perhaps more). One group being primary school Kids, the other
Secondary School Kids. The competition is
around raising a pet ewe lamb from say a week old to weaning (90 to 100 days),
these lambs are taken to compete against others at what would be a designated
regional show (for example Leeston Show in Canterbury, needs to be an early
spring show), some thought needs to be given on how they are judged, primarily
on conformation (you obviously keep the conversation away from carcasses and
death etc). A designated number of place
getters at regional shows could then go forward
into an island or national competition at a bigger show, e.g. Canterbury A and
P show.
The lambs could be either bought
outright at a week old for say $120 or for $30 at the beginning and then
returned to the farmer after the competition (hence the need for ewe lambs as
there is a chance of being kept as a replacement) This arrangement in itself would require two
visits to a farm.
These lambs would primarily be raised
on milk and some sort of pellets at their homes in the city (information packs
would be given to all children who want to enter on how to do it, getting lambs
raising them and returning them etc.)
The key to this working in my
view is substantial sponsorship and therefore prize money: for secondary school
student winners there should be something like a S5000 a year scholarship
(perhaps more) for 3 years towards a University degree with an agricultural
focus of some sort. Primary school
category; again some sort of significant relevant prize. It needs to be significant to encourage
parents to get on board with what would require significant effort on their
part. If there is a major carrot at the
end of it with little cost to them (need sponsorship of the milk powder and
pellets to grow the lamb) parents would get behind it.
You market it through the schools
and I believe (with a significant prize that appeals to children and/or their
parents) you would get a significant uptake of Kids who want to do this. Out of this participation (going to the farm,
raising the lamb, attending the show) there would be a number of children who
would catch the bug and the passion to want to be a farmer or be involved in
the agricultural industry and an improvement in the relationship between the
rural and city community.
This is just an idea that I would
love someone or some entity to take, develop and implement.
