Farm skills in demand

Canegrowers in Queensland and northern NSW have the biggest labour challenges according to Rabobank, with 71 per cent finding it "difficult or very difficult" to retain and attract farm employees.

Despite cooling activity in the mining industry, which has siphoned a lot of labour from the farm sector in the past decade, Rabo's latest rural confidence survey found 56pc of Australian farmers continued to have notable problems finding or retaining employees.

Cotton farmers were best placed with only 13pc reporting difficulties.

Farm employment agencies confirm strong demand for farm labour and skilled positions across the agribusiness supply chain despite the prospect of mining sector workers drifting back to agriculture and a revival in the number of university students studying rural subjects.

Agricultural Appointments co-principal Brett Price said the mining industry's strong attraction as a source of "easy money" had put a lot of pressure on the availability of farm hands in Queensland, Western Australia and hotspots such as the NSW Central West and North West.

Young people with mechanical, building or metal engineering skills were particularly hard to find for farm jobs Australia-wide.

"We'd expect some easing in that rural labour market pressure now the mining industry is not so heated and workers are getting sick of the fly-in-fly-out routine, however, it's not easy to see that conclusion at the moment," Mr Price said.

He said the idea of returning to a farm lifestyle was attractive to many, but mining sector pay scales may also have conditioned others to seek out alternative, better-paying jobs away from farms.

Drought in Queensland and northern NSW had also disrupted the demand for farm labour as farmer budgets withered.

Fellow co-principal in the farm and food sector job placement agency Ray Johnson, said some former mine workers may also be shocked to find many potential employers were cautious about hiring ex-miners whose farm capabilities and management skills had not been cultivated for some time.

Despite their previous agricultural training and experience, workers who had spent four or six years driving a truck and earning a big pay packet were no longer necessarily well-suited to the pressures and responsibilities of farm work.

One area where rural labour was badly needed was the poultry industry - a $4 billion sector employing 40,000 people in Australia.

"It might not be considered a well-trodden agribusiness career, but there's a genuine shortage of poultry farm workers and people needed in the related nutrition and health areas - and demand will grow further," Mr Price said.

"Australians are the world's second biggest per capita consumers of chicken meat (44 kilograms annually) behind Brazil."

"The dairy industry is also jockeying to expand production and break into new markets - it badly needs skilled farm workers, people in livestock nutrition and agronomy roles, or in dairy processing plants."

Rabobank country banking group executive Peter Knoblanche noted availability of farm labour and farm succession were among the big issues being canvassed in the federal government's white paper on agricultural competitiveness.

Rabo's national survey of more than 1000 farmers showed industry confidence levels had eased for the second consecutive quarter on the back of a hot, dry summer and recent mixed seasonal conditions.

The mood was undermined significantly where ongoing drought in Queensland and northern NSW was hitting hard.

However, above-average harvest results in Victoria and parts of southern NSW also helped foster overall optimistic expectations from 29pc of respondents, while 27pc were pessimistic.