Farmers Weekly has launched a new e-learning website for farmers, farmworkers and advisers.
The new Farmers Weekly Academy gives a learning experience in agriculture as never before, enabling users to create their own profiles, print off certificates and link to the industry's existing - and emerging - accrediting schemes.
The academy website has been designed to work in tandem with the industry's objectives to demonstrate farming professionalism, which now has accrediting schemes spanning the arable, pig, poultry and dairy sectors.
The launch of the Farmers Weekly Academy could not be more timely, said Richard Longthorp, AgriSkills Forum chair and the driving force behind the pig industry training and development scheme. "There is an increasing awareness of the need to become more productive and competitive and a real desire to demonstrate the professionalism of the industry.
"The academy will be invaluable as a stand-alone tool, but more importantly dovetailing perfectly with wider industry professional development offers," he added.
The academy complements the strategy of the AgriSkills Forum, a cross-industry initiative set up four years ago by the NFU, YFC, AHDB, Lantra and Lantex to recognise existing skills and promote new learning and professionalism, which in turn promotes the industry as a progressive place to work.
"Through knowledge transfer and learning we want to help farmers become more productive, more efficient and make learning an activity of self-fulfilment rather than a chore," said editorial project director Debbie Beaton.
"We want to help farmers record and acknowledge their technical expertise and competencies, while also encouraging them to continue to learn and develop throughout their careers."
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Farmers Weekly Academy website