Initiative rests with industry to blood farming’s new generation

With the average age of a British farmer being 59, the Royal Agricultural Society of England expects that the UK needs 60,000 new entrants in the decade to 2022, and key to attracting young people could be advances in technology.

Next week, the Yorkshire Agricultural Society (YAS) holds an annual Careers in Focus event at its Harrogate showground, when around 1,500 secondary school students from across the region will get the chance to speak to more than 80 organisations representing all farming sectors and its allied industries.

Among the attractions will be demonstrations of the latest technology, from GPS guided tractors showcased by Ripon Farm Services which allow farmers to programme how and where in the fields fertilisers are applied, and drones from Bishop Burton College which can be flown over crops to check for damage, to LED lighting used at Stockbridge Technology Centre to grow British tomatoes.

Elizabeth Hudson, charitable activities manager at the YAS who organises the event, believes the technological focus of modern farming will attract young people to pursue agricultural careers.

Ms Hudson said: “We know young people are very savvy when it comes to IT and using apps and when they come along to our event they will be able to see the opportunities to use those skills as part of a career in agriculture and its allied industries.

“When we get young people in front of these technologies, they speak for themselves but as an industry we have to create that awareness that farming is an increasingly high-tech industry and that there are lots of routes into agricultural careers.”

She said farming and agriculture was not inaccessible to young people from families who are not already involved in the industry and that there were routes into the industry through contract and share farming.

Asked if the furore generated by depressed commodity prices such as milk may deter young people from identifying farming as a career that paid, Mrs Hudson said: “It’s bound to have an impact but it is our responsibility to prove that there is a vibrant industry.

“There are big challenges around feeding a growing world population, about growing more for less and reducing our environmental impact and so it is vital we have people coming through, whether they are involved in supporting research or are designing equipment to increase our yields, to a whole host of other roles.”

The programme for the Careers in Focus event next Tuesday features a range of short seminars with speakers such as Jimmy Fawcett, junior auctioneer at Leyburn Auction Mart, a CV clinic and mock interview sessions for the teenage guests. Among the exhibitors will be a vets practice, land agents and colleges.

Inspiration from young auctioneer

To inspire young people to choose an agricultural career like he did, 19-year-old Jimmy Fawcett will speak to visitors at the Careers in Focus event about how he became a livestock auctioneer.

Mr Fawcett, who also helps out on the 450-acre family farm run by his parents Carl and Kathy and older brother Ed, attended Careers in Focus in Harrogate as a school pupil himself before becoming a junior auctioneer at Leyburn Auction Mart.

He said: “I have two other brothers and a sister, we’re all interested in farming and there is not enough of the farm to go around. I thought I could still help on the farm on a week night by being an auctioneer and that I would learn things by handling the livestock in the auction rings that I could take back to the farm.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”