ON the same day the Coalition unveiled its plan to boost regional Australia, Border and North East agriculture leaders were telling the government our rural future rested largely with schools.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The standing committee on agriculture and industry’s public hearing into agricultural innovation in Wodonga heard from seven industry stakeholders, and a consistent message was telecommunications and a focus on education.
Independent member for Indi Cathy McGowan, who sat on the hearing committee, said agriculture had become Victoria’s main industry following the demise of car making.
"There's something like 17 secondary schools in Indi, three of them do ag … clearly we've got a huge agriculture base so what do you think is happening that we haven't got this demand for agriculture subjects in schools,” Ms McGowan asked.
Alpine Valleys Dairy Pathways Project representatives told the hearing "the link between agriculture and schools has almost disappeared, given that this is one of the most rurally dependant areas of Australia, that is a little bit shocking”.
Rutherglen Premium Lamb production manager Jenny Anderson said agriculture had been forgotten as Australia was swept up in the mining boom.
"There's so many things that money is needed for, to teach kids to do. It's been engineers for the mining, it's been IT specialists, it's been doctors but they all eat food don't they?” Ms Anderson said.
“And they've sort of been totally overlooked, some schools haven't but Australia has totally overlooked the fact that we're a food bowl.”
Hearing chairman, Liberal member for Grey, Rowan Ramsey said about 15 of the 100 submissions the inquiry received came from the Riverina or North East Victoria.
“That's not surprising because it is fairly intensive agriculture when you get to the North East of Victoria,” Mr Ramsey said.
But Mr Ramsey could not see a return to compulsory agriculture lessons in either primary or secondary schools.
"We are increasingly becoming a services economy, you can talk about the mining boom but in fact we know the big growth is in services of tourism, it's in health, it's in aged care,” Mr Ramsey said.
"It is those kinds of things that we will be exporting our expertise to the rest of the world.
"But we do need an understanding of agriculture because it is, as I keep saying, a sunrise industry.
"The best days of agriculture are probably in front of us.”
Representatives from North East Catchment Management Authority, Riverina Local Land Services and Michael Friend from CSU-based Graham Centre also addressed the hearing.
