It wasn’t exactly selling ice to the Eskimos, but it took a move from her family farm at Blighty in NSW to, well, to a family farm at Lalbert, in Victoria, to convince Zara Macdonald she wanted to be, well, to be a farmer.
Having just finished Year 12, Zara had enrolled at Deakin University to do a Bachelor of Arts – and then her father heard about the National Farmers Federation’s AgCAREERSTART gap-year program and suggested she have a look.
The next thing the teenager knew she was packed and headed south to join Peter and Jo Mullan on their cropping enterprise – arriving in time to sow all but a few hundred of the Mullan’s 6500-acres of wheat, barley and lentils.
And both Zara and the Mullans reckon they got the better part of the bargain.
The NFF national program isn’t about slave labour, it’s about giving people – ideally school leavers who had never considered agriculture as a career – a hands-on insight into what farming has to offer them.
There were more than 300 applicants for the program, so the message seems to be getting through – but even though this is a gap year, the NFF and wider industry are all too aware of the gap they are trying to fill.
NFF chief executive Tony Mahar says “the impact of Australia’s current labour shortage is being felt by farmers across the country, with an estimated $22 million in crop losses having already been reported”.
“The AgCAREERSTART program is a new way of building a skilled workforce to complement the in-demand skills farmers need and to help innovate industry practices,” Tony says.
“The partnerships forged in round one of AgCAREERSTART have been a huge success for farmers and students alike, with students learning about farm data capture and mapping and operating state-of-the-art machinery,” he says.
“Many of the participants are moving out of home for the first time and learning essential life skills such as cooking, communication and problem-solving skills, as well as undertaking training that will help in their future careers, such as obtaining a first aid certificate, truck licence or forklift ticket.”And the farmers don’t think the concept too shabby either, with Peter Mullan one of those only too aware of the disappearance of backpackers and domestic labour options.
He said he has used them all, but now they are very hard to get, and very choosy when you find them – “if your farm is with 30 minutes of the Gold Coast you’ve got a chance, but ask them to come to Victoria in mid-winter and sow a crop and you’re going to be bloody lucky to get a taker”.
“Right now Joanne and I are the workforce, although my dad Len reckons he’s still good for a day’s work – except for his heart problems,” Peter explains.”Our teenage daughters also seem to have other things on their minds and are even harder to find if there is some shearing to be done (apart from his cropping, Peter runs around 400 crossbreds for the prime lamb market).
“The Mullans are deeply connected to their farm and their land, Peter’s grandmother was born there in 1894 after the family arrived in the 1870s, one of the first farmers in the region.
Before Covid, Peter said for a while he had an amazing run of helpers – from a Danish dynamo to French backpackers doing their nationally-mandated agricultural work while travelling the world to a 20-year-old Aussie who could do, literally, everything, but who, in the end, followed his girlfriend when she went home a year before the pandemic.
He has now reached the point where he needs a fulltime person, but in farm parlance, they are as scarce as hen’s teeth.”These day, though, new starters want a house, a car and a phone even if they have no great experience. I’m happy to respect a person but I feel you need to prove you can do the job before you start asking for all the extras,” Peter says.
“It’s a bit of a one-way street, but I know if I could find someone who wants a long-term role and who wants to work in farming, there is plenty of scope right here.”
Through AgCAREERSTART, participants are employed under award wages on qualified farms for up to 12 months. Participants receive safety training and relocation assistance and have the opportunity to join the farm after their completion of the program.
For Zara even the relatively short relocation from one farm to the next has been life-changing.
She is already in the process of switching her degree from arts at Deakin to a Bachelor of Ag Business Management at Charles Sturt University and is looking at her future in a whole new way.
“I guess I applied on a bit of a whim, as I really had no clue what I was going to do, but moving away from home for the first time, even though it’s onto another farm, has helped me realise that’s what I really want to do,” Zara says.
“Back home we have cropping and hobby sheep (when conditions are good the sheep get a run, when it’s dry they are gone) and have also branched into industrial hemp, and have had two harvests of that already. It helps we are about 90 per cent irrigated,” she says.
“I loved running the tractor for sowing and I am also aware how hard it is for people to find anyone to come and work on farms; getting them to stay even a year is also a bigger ask.
“I got to Lalbert in March and will be here until after harvest – provided we get some rain, and the crop is going to be a lot better than things look right now.
“I’m still going with the flow a bit at the moment, but my time with Pete and Jo has given me some real direction and enthusiasm.”
Part of the program provides you with some money for training, and recently ZaraI went to the Graingrowers Australia conference in Sydney, where she got the chance to hook up with 14 other AgCAREERSTART participants.
“It was really good, every one of them said they were really enjoying their placements and at this stage I think they were all pretty set on staying within the industry – this is a great program and it is certainly paying off for me and for the others I have met.”
Zara says her home farm’s 12,000 acres is run by her father and two uncles and although there are a bigger number of family members in her generation, she says her older cousins have gone off to do their own things and she thinks only a couple of others, like her, want to go onto the farm.
Hopefully not too many of them will take part in AgCAREERSTART or things might start getting a bit crowded with cousins all wanting to go back on the family farm.
Applications for both farmer hosts and participants are now open. For more information and to register your interest, go to https://agcareerstart.com.au/
