AGRICULTURE student Lillie Ackley is not at all surprised by survey results showing 77 per cent of city-based teenagers know either little or nothing about farming.
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“They don’t know about the industry,” said the Year 11 student from Crestwood High School in Sydney’s Baulkham Hills.
“It is really important to know about agriculture – it is important people know where their food is coming from,” she said.
Lillie has been studying agriculture since Year 8, and is doing an animal studies course at Richmond TAFE.
She is passionate about her agriculture education and loves working with livestock, but the high school student from north-western Sydney is in the minority when it comes to an understanding of farming, according to recently released survey results from Rabobank.
Aside from showing 77pc of city teenagers had little or no knowledge of food production, the Rabobank Farm Experience Urban Youth Research survey of 600, 15- to 18-year-old high school students from Australian capital cities also revealed 68pc had little or no knowledge about how food goes from the farm through to the plate.
Other figures showed 50pc have only set foot on a farm three or fewer times in their life, while 17pc of those surveyed have never been on a farm.
Rabobank sustainable business development head Marc Oostdijk, Sydney, said some of the survey results confirmed assumptions of a knowledge gap of farming for urban high school students.
“There is a high level of urbanisation in Australia, with about 65pc of the total population living in the five big cities, so there is quite a big urban-rural divide, but one of the things that connects the two is food and fibre production,” Mr Oostdijk said.
“Yet the level of knowledge of food production in the city – and the understanding of how it is grown – is low.”
The results from the survey were not all negative.
“What was surprising though was the high amount of positive associations with the food and fibre industry, and how important youth think farming is to Australia,” he said.
The survey found an overwhelming 93pc had positive associations with farming, highlighting the contribution of agriculture to the economy.
And 60pc considered farming to be extremely important in Australia.
There then is a missing link between the positive views of agriculture and the actual knowledge of agriculture, Mr Oostdijk said.
He said it was important to improve the promotion of career prospects in agriculture to urban students, highlighting exciting areas such as technological developments in the industry.
There is positivity on the ground, believes Crestwood High School’s agriculture teacher Robbie Ashurst, who said many students were extremely interested in agriculture and were having good discussions about the future of agriculture.
NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said some of the survey results were concerning.
Nick Heydon
The Land's property editor.
The Land's property editor.
