By Catherine Waite
INDUSTRY NEWS
Securing the next generation of agri-food farmers and workers
NEW research aims to hear from young people about the challenges they face moving into agriculture jobs and careers, and what it is that makes them leave. The University of Melbourne, with agriculture industry partners, and Victoria’ s Local Learning and Employment Networks, are conducting research that investigates young people’ s employment pathways into, and out of, agriculture and horticulture. Across Victoria, 448 young people aged between 15-35 have completed a survey or interview. Six stakeholder engagement codesign roundtables are currently underway. Most recently, we hosted a roundtable in Mildura with representatives from local horticulture peak bodies, agriemployers, education and local councils. The research project is a response to the challenges faced by the agriculture and horticulture sectors in attracting and retaining people under 35 years of age. The sector has one of the highest median ages of all employment industries, with the largest proportion of workers over the age of 61. This is a problem for employers wanting to recruit new workers into their businesses, with flow-on effects into rural and regional communities where limited employment opportunities can prompt outmigration. Young people often face pressure to leave their home communities when they finish secondary school in search of jobs and careers elsewhere. The findings will contribute a better understanding of the barriers and challenges young people face in agri-food jobs and identify the key points in young people’ s education, training and career pathways where effective supports could be targeted to improve attraction and retention. The research is supported by the
A recent roundtable in Mildura addressed the challenges young people face moving into agriculture jobs and careers.
Australian Research Council’ s Linkage program. The first two phases of the project are complete, and the third is underway. This included an original analysis of the nationally representative Housing, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia( HILDA) survey. Our findings from the HILDA analysis confirm that fewer and fewer young people are entering the sector over time. The HILDA analysis also showed that young people’ s retention in the sector drops over time, and retention rates decrease exponentially after five and 10 years. The second phase, interviews and surveys with 448 young people across Victoria, was completed in 2025. During this phase, we were able to explore in more depth young people’ s pathways into the sector, and the reasons for staying or leaving. While analysis is ongoing, consistent themes across the diverse cohort of participants indicate that a sense of passion and ethical contribution to a broader purpose motivate entry and retention, however, motivations change as young people get older, such as the relative importance of competitive salary. The third phase of the project focuses on engaging with stakeholders in agriculture, education and community in six regional centres in Victoria. The purpose of the roundtables is to discuss the top findings from the project, and co-design strategic policy suggestions that apply to the regional and industry-specific challenges across the state. The project’ s findings, and collaborative co-design process with stakeholders across the state, will be important to establishing a solutionorientated approach towards the barriers and challenges young people face. The aim is to help bolster the agriculture workforce, helping connect those interested in agriculture careers with agriemployers across the state, and enable young people to find meaningful career pathways in Victoria’ s rural and regional communities. Want to learn more? Visit the project website and follow the outcomes from the project as they become available.
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