We submit the following to the review of Land-based training:

Farmers of New Zealand Incorporated is a new national advocacy and rural sector think tank. It has grown to five hundred members throughout New Zealand and currently holds a dominant market share in the Northland region.

1.  We support the review into training provision because we believe both access and quality of training in agriculture has not kept pace with industry needs. Employment on the land has become less attractive to young people as New Zealand has actively sought to diversify away from primary sector exports and as an industry we came under scrutiny for our land management practises.  There has been a perceived reduction in the provision and investment in agricultural training for the last two decades and this has exacerbated the problem;

2.  Land-based business is struggling to attract young people into the industry for a variety of reasons some described above. For many farm work is employment of last resort and is therefore sought by those that have few or little academic ability. There is significant variation in the quality of farm businesses across the country and this results in erratic standards of on the job training;

3.  Apart from large corporate farm’s many businesses employ a small staff with limited ability to provide on the job basic training. Due to a lack of consistent standards across the industry best practise is not always followed or taught;

4.  There is an ever-increasing demand for trained and competent staff and while we have no quantitative research anecdotally we believe there is significant opportunity to improve farm productivity. There is also a real need to improve transfer of new technologies to farm practice;

5.  As farm businesses get larger there is an increasing need for high-level farm and financial management training. Such high level training needs to have national status and be recognised by the industry.

6.  Many employers facing increased cost pressures are reluctant to support off the job employee training;

7.  However, training in specific skills using short courses close to the place of work is recognised by employers as valuable and is supported more than ‘generalised’ training because they observe immediate benefit;

8.  Off the job training is best provided by workshops that are practically focussed and located close to the place of work;

9.  Practical pre-employment training at least in basic skills is widely supported by the industry;

10.          We believe there is decreased emphasis on dedicated specialist agricultural training providers and this has been detrimental to the industry. For pre-employment training, which is highly preferred by employers, the standard of training outweighs regional convenience. In our opinion it is important that the training provider operates commercial farms to maintain a practical understanding of the industry and provide quality best practise training;

11.          We support increased use of video conferencing by training providers into secondary schools as a way of giving students pre-job training, a better understanding of the industry, career prospects, and the types of work. This needs to be undertaken by training providers that can demonstrate on-farm activity and therefore would be better provided by those that operate or have a relationship with best practise commercial farms;

12.          As broadband becomes more universal we expect distance-learning courses to become increasingly popular. We believe that such courses would be better resourced by national specialist providers who could also provide part time programmes, but backed up by regional training provider workshops;

13.          We support greater collaboration and cooperation between national specialist training providers and regional providers. Utilising the two services for delivery can optimise training courses. Widely available areas of learning should not be treated as common and therefore offered by regional providers at the expense of specialist national providers. Differing abilities to resource courses between regional providers is likely to create variable standards. The two types of provision should not be mutually exclusive and could and should work well together;

14.          We do not support any policy that allows regional based training providers to veto the deliver of training from competing providers located outside their region. This will damage and reduce access to quality and specialist-training providers, and reduce standards. It may also have the effect of reducing the perceived value of an agricultural qualification in comparison with similar qualifications from other industries;

15.          Specialist national training providers are better resourced to attract quality teachers, provide consistency across course models, transfer technology and adapt to changing sector needs, provide better sector links and curriculum development, provide economic niche training, and provide training in areas that regional training providers are unable to deliver. They can also undertake national contracts with the sector when it is required;

16.          We also believe specialist national providers demonstrate long term commitment to the sector which we believe is critical, can set better and more transparent moderation standards, and provide much better pathways into higher education, research, and work opportunities. We need acknowledged centres of excellence;