SMARTfarm Learning Hub: Next generation technologies for agricultural education: Final report 2018

In 2015-2016 there were 282,000 people employed in agriculture in Australia (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences [ABARES], 2017). Despite the recognition that the modern agricultural industry is complex and demanding, it still has one of the lowest proportion of workers with post-secondary qualifications across the economy (Senate Standing Committees on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2012), with approximately 7.8 per cent of the agricultural workforce with tertiary qualifications compared with 25 per cent for the broader population (Pratley, 2012). Pratley and Botwright Acuna (2015) have also reported that there is already a skills shortage in the industry, with an estimated four jobs available for every tertiary agricultural graduate in Australia

Two steps forward and one step back: Progress towards innovation platforms for Agricultural Workforce development in Australia

Abstract: The challenges in attracting, retaining and developing an agricultural workforce is emerging as an important area of policy interest and practical concern for farming systems. This is particularly pertinent in Australia whereby increasing farm size and production in response to post-drought climatic conditions and low levels of unemployment from the mining boom has contributed to chronic workforce shortages. This paper reports on empirical research conducted in the Australian dairy and cotton sectors into agricultural workforce issues as a systemic problem. Drawing on concepts of innovation platforms for making progress in agricultural workforce development, the aim of the paper is to explore the pre-conditions for the formation of an innovation platform as a response to systemic challenges like agricultural workforce development. What is the process by which innovation platforms emerge and are sustained? Focusing specifically on the institutional arrangements that are supporting or hindering farming systems transformation related to workforce issues, this paper compares and contrasts the projects and approaches to workforce development underway in the dairy and cotton sectors drawn from documents and previous research. Further, results from interviews with industry leaders and stakeholders regarding the institutional arrangements hindering or enabling progress in workforce development were analysed. In the dairy sector we found the emergence of an innovation platform involving different stakeholders acting collectively across national and local scales and across farming, employment, community, training and industry scales. In the cotton sector we found the complex industry governance arrangements and uncertainty in taking action to address workforce issues as a systemic concern hindered collective action. We conclude that whereas innovation platforms may be considered a means by which complex systemic issues are addressed, more emphasis on supporting the preconditions for emergence of such platforms is required, such as a commitment of key institutions to sustain the approach

Governing Australia’s Dairy Farm Workforce: A New Terrain for Negotiating Rural Community Sustainability

Amidst heightened policy interest in the future of agriculture, there is an emerging new focus on the topic of the farm workforce in Australia. Will agricultural industries have the people – both farm business owners and employees – that they need? While government and industry are focused on the sustainability of production, farm workforce dynamics also intersect with wider economic and social processes in rural communities, an issue of ongoing concern for rural studies scholars. Here we examine currently emerging policy and action on farm workforce issues from a governance perspective, using the dairy industry in the Australian state of Victoria as a case study. Drawing on both governmentality and political science approaches, we explore workforce governance through three overlapping studies: policy-making, farmers’ lived experiences and industry-led collective action. Across the three studies we ask, first, what is revealed about neo-liberal agricultural industry governance and, second, what possibilities the new focus on workforce creates for rural communities concerned about social and economic sustainability. We argue that the farm workforce as a policy object crystallizes the tension between the strongly individualizing discourse of neo-liberalism and the pursuit of public policy objectives framed at the collective scale. If the neo-liberalizing project is understood as a work in progress, then the issue of the farm workforce can be seen as another dilemma to be worked through. In this the roles of collective agents and spaces in both agricultural industries and in communities are critical, making the farm workforce a terrain for innovation in which rural communities can negotiate their interests afresh

Skills Profile and Labour Supply Structures on Cotton Farms

The project titled 'Skills Profile and Labour Supply Structures on Cotton Farms' was funded by the CRDC and covered the period from March 2015 to August 2018. The main aim was to determine current and future labour needs on cotton farms and assess these against supply of labour to farms, identify gaps in meeting needs and recommend strategies to address the gaps. As part of achieving this broad aim, position descriptions were developed for recruiting employees on cotton farms. Furthermore, strategies used by farmers to retain core employees were assessed against industry trends to identify areas for improvement. The project enabled assessment of the extent to which current and future sources of labour would help the industry meet its goal of building a capable and connected workforce with the knowledge and skills to drive the industry and handle emerging challenges. A qualitative research approach was used involving face-to-face and telephone interviews with various stakeholder groups associated with the research objectives. They comprised experts in cotton and associated industries, farmers, contractors, and labour supply firms. The interviews were transcribed with permission from interviewees and analysed for key themes. In total 11 experts, 32 farmers, 23 Contractors, and 10 labour supply firms were interviewed. Three main positions were identified on cotton farms - farm hand, lead hand (or supervisor) and farm managers. Position descriptions were prepared for each and recruitment sources and selection processes identified, also for each position. Training was generally on-the-job and retention efforts involved providing incentives such as accommodation, vehicles, mobile phones and sometimes paying school fees of employees' children

Enacting resilience for adaptive water governance: a case study of irrigation modernization in an Australian catchment

Adaptive governance relies on the collaboration of a diverse set of stakeholders in multiple institutions and organizations at different times and places. In the context of unprecedented water policy and management reform in Australia over the past decade, we add to insights from resilience scholarship, which identifies adaptive governance as critical to improving complex social-ecological systems, such as water management. We present empirical research with agricultural industry stakeholders who are responding to a major change initiative to renew or modernize the largest irrigation system in Australia's Murray Darling Basin and who ask: "What can a resilience assessment intervention contribute to adaptive water governance in this context?" Using resilience approaches and connecting these with insights from science and technology studies (STS), we found that a particular resilience assessment intervention supported dairy industry stakeholders to manage the complexity, uncertainty, and diversity of an irrigation modernization governance challenge. It did so by explicitly accounting for, representing, and aligning different water governing practices through the use of resilience concepts, a particular resilience assessment tool, and a participatory process for engaging social actors. Possibilities for adaptive governance emerged from the intervention in the form of new joint strategic actions and new understandings, alliances, and roles between people and institutions for addressing irrigation modernization

Doing water research differently for innovation in regional water productivity in Australia

Research in innovation studies suggests that appropriate starting conditions are required if alignment of research to practice and policy is to be enabled. To achieve this alignment, a scoping exercise is required and must involve those people and institutions that have an interest in the research. This paper describes a consultation process to develop a Blueprint for Regional Water Productivity in Australia through a new research initiative at the University of Melbourne. This Blueprint was developed through a two-stage consultation project in which opportunities and constraints for system innovation in regional water productivity in Australia were identified and discussed with key stakeholders without pre-empting research or development questions. In this paper, we ask: Did this consultation process constitute a platform for innovation in research practices? In addressing this question, we describe this process and suggest that it constituted a fledgling platform for innovation in research practices characterised by new social arrangements, material exchanges and the discursive object of `innovation systems'. However, the potential for institutional change from this platform will depend on continued deliberation between water sector actors in new routines of research-development practice, and collective action through the formalisation of new partnerships between researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.</p