Farm apprenticeship scheme aims to bring new jobs
An apprenticeship scheme set to create hundreds of jobs for young people considering a career in agriculture has been launched in the East of England.
EDGE Apprenticeships aims to boost training opportunities and develop young people from the Norfolk and Suffolk as well as provide a recruitment pipeline for businesses in the area.
The programme has been developed by a consortium of partners including Anglia Farmers, Atlas Farm Group and Easton and Otley Agricultural College and is supported by £1.4 m from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
The scheme hopes to create hundreds of apprenticeships in the next two years by working with local employers to equip young people with the practical, managerial and technical skills required to develop successful careers in farming and food production.
For Clarke Willis, chief executive officer of Anglia Farmers, the focus of the scheme is on increasing employment opportunities for young people entering the industry.
“The apprentices will be employed from day one and as the programme is employer-driven, the farmers and businesses in the wider food chain who take on apprentices will be creating jobs,” he said.
The scheme is part of a wider four-year plan which Mr Willis hopes will see this year’s East of England pilot rolled out nationally.
“By year four, we’re looking to have created about 400 new jobs nationally,” he said.
The programme has been developed as a result of concerns from members of the two farmer co-operatives, Anglia Farmers and Atlas Farm Group, who have been struggling to find young people with the right skills to replace staff who were retiring.
Andrew Francis of Elveden Farms, Norfolk, said: “As a business, the challenge is recruiting suitable young people into operational and management level jobs.
But recently we’ve had difficulty finding agricultural mechanics so we’re having to train two young people ourselves.”
Mr Willis hopes that EDGE Apprenticeships will open doors to a wide range of careers in agriculture that are often overlooked by young people. “Working in food and farming is exciting, engaging and varied, so it’s high time we started shouting about what we can offer,” he said.
The latest student enrolment figures from the Higher Education Statistical Agency suggest the popularity of agriculture-related courses is booming.
Between 2011 and 2012 postgraduate and undergraduate enrolment in agricultural courses increased by more than any other subject, up 10% and 3% respectively.
And Farmers Weekly’s Farmers Apprentice competition last year attracted more than 600 entrants, 40% of which had no farming background and 30% were women.
Richard Anscombe, chief executive of Atlas Farm Group said. “Opportunities in agriculture and food will only increase as the world population grows and UK agriculture plays a key role in feeding people,” he said.
And according to Mr Anscombe agriculture is a better paymaster than many would believe. “From a highly-skilled technician operating a £250,000 tractor to a trader seated in a busy grain trading office, salaries commonly exceed the national average and can reach six figures,” he said.
| Farmers Weekly comment: Show them farming pays |
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| The idea that the increasing importance of agriculture and food security on the global political agenda will lead to more opportunities for young people is a logical and exciting prospect. But it raises a big question about one of the major barriers to working in agriculture, that of earning a decent wage.
While well-paid opportunities exist for the right people, across the board agricultural wages are still lagging behind other industries. The latest Labour Market Survey from the Office for National Statistics (February 2013) showed that the average weekly earnings for someone employed in agriculture was just £364, which puts it among the lowest paid industries in the UK.
The survey also revealed that even graduates who studied agriculture to degree level did not fare particularly well financially, with a median hourly wage of £15.83, well shy of medicine, engineering and law graduate wages.
And in terms of salary, 2011 figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal how agricultural occupations ranked by wage against all other occupations (422 in total). Farm managers come in at 189th with an average salary of £25,257, farmers at 237th with an average of £22,561 and farmworkers near the bottom of the pile at 322nd with an average of £17,571. Promoting agriculture as a career is clearly a task the industry is getting its teeth into and the image of the industry should surely improve as a result of recent high profile initiatives and media coverage. But providing appropriate job opportunities at a competitive wage for a new generation is still a major hurdle. EDGE Apprenticeships is a promising start on tackling this fundamental barrier, but it’s clear much more needs to be done to facilitate recruitment of a young, talented agricultural labour force. Will Frazer |
For farming to have wide appeal and attract new talent, the opportunity needs to be more than just a worthy cause. Wages should be competitive in the UK labour market and reward the technical skill now needed to work in the sector. Read more from the Farmers Apprentice project