Farming must improve its PR to attract new blood

British agriculture must recruit 60,000 new entrants in the next ten years to maintain its current workforce, according to the Royal Agricultural Society of England.

The RASE has commissioned a report (in PDF form) on the issues surrounding new entrant recruitment into farming and related sectors.

Its conclusion is that unless the industry raises its game in promoting itself as an attractive, rewarding career destination it is likely to lose out in the battle for a diminishing pool of available entrants.

Alan Spedding, report author, said: “Farming is perceived as weak in public relations and communication skills. It must get across to potential entrants that the industry is complex, technical, challenging and satisfying.

“The industry’s current recruitment and promotion efforts do not compare well with image building for competing careers in the armed forces, NHS, teaching, science, engineering and the motor retail business.

“Many of these groups are better resourced that farming ever could be so there is a real need to make up for this by putting more effort where there will be most impact and, most important, by working together across the industry disciplines.”

The report acknowledges that the NFU made a start through its Why Young People Matter to Farming campaign launched in 2007.

However, agriculture in its broadest sense is unlikely to make a major impact as an industry unless all sectors – farming, agricultural engineering, agricultural science and all the support sectors up-stream and down-stream from the farm, come together to promote their career potential.

Mr Spedding says that predicting the numbers of people the industry will require as new entrants is difficult but it looks like farming must recruit in excess of 6000 a year for the next decade of which perhaps 1000 each year will be for salaried management roles.

The available statistics indicate that only between 50% and 70% of the recruits needed by employers are currently emerging from further and higher education, creating a shortfall in numbers coming forward.

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