New Zealand produces about 20,000 university graduates each year, but fewer than 100 of those will be majoring in agricultural sciences. Add in a further 100 graduates from the agribusiness and viticulture major and it's still only 1 per cent of graduates being trained to provide the top-end skills our primary industries are crying out for.
Professor Jacqueline Rowarth from Waikato University says: "What the industry has is a need for more great people to do good things in agriculture. But right now, we don't have a generation that will respond to that message."
The inter-generational issue is becoming clearer and clearer too. The average age of a dairy farmer in New Zealand is 43 years old, rising to 50 for sheep and beef farmers. There is a big need more of the traditional sort of succession plans to be developed.
Despite agriculture graduates leaving university and walking straight into jobs earning more than $55,000, it's just not seen as a desirable lifestyle. When compared with the average graduate who earns about $38,000 -- it says a lot that a 55 per cent pay bump from day one can't make up the gap in perception to material-driven millennials.
The demand is driving salaries up, but that alone isn't providing the incentive for sufficient supply. It is going to take a cross-sector, concerted effort to draw the punters.
Topping that agenda has to be eliminating the social stigma attached to working in the agriculture industry. It's clear that the public at large still don't truly appreciate the practical skills and intelligence required to run these multi-million-dollar businesses. "Agriculture is still seen as laborious, unsophisticated work and so intelligent students aren't guided in this direction," said Rowarth.
"So at school there are no real kudos given to career tracks through science towards agriculture, it's still heavily slanted towards doctors, dentists and the more traditional glamour professions.
"If we want them to have rewarding careers, encouraging them to use their skills and attributes in the areas that the world needs is more likely to have the right result than simply asking them which subjects they like best."
Send the right signals -- create big scholarships and pluck some of the top talent straight from high school and get them into tertiary agriculture programmes. At the same time raise the profile of alternate pathways -- NZQA has an array of agriculture apprenticeships on their books but they're being under-utilised.
Massey University was ranked 19th in the world for agriculture in the QS World University Rankings. Lincoln University also came in the top 100, offering an array of agricultural science and commerce programmes -- with significant on-site learning involved. The facilities are there but the desire is wanting.
The message is clear, we're producing the right people -- just not enough of them. The solution can't come from industry, government or the educators alone, a cohesive plan to target and retain top talent must be devised. The agriculture sector is the backbone of the New Zealand economy and without a sustained influx of fresh meat, progress and growth may come to a grinding halt.
Fran O'Sullivan is a business columnist for the NZ Herald and Alexander Speirs (right) is a business journalist for Herald Business Reports.
