The Australian Government Response to the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy has been released.
National Agriculture Workforce Strategy
In December 2019, the Government established the independent National Agricultural Labour Advisory Committee.
The committee consulted with more than 300 organisations and considered 117 submissions. Following this, the committee developed the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy: learning to excel. The strategy was released in March 2021.
The strategy confirms that Australian agriculture is a complex and sophisticated system. Its performance relies heavily on the quality of its people. It highlights the need to:
- modernise agriculture’s image
- attract and keep workers
- embrace innovation
- build skills for modern agriculture
- treat workers ethically.
The committee also emphasised how important it is to get quality data and recognised the important role overseas workers have in filling workforce gaps.
Australian Government response
We released the Australian Government Roadmap to attract, retain, upskill and modernise the agriculture workforce in March 2021 at the same time as the National Agriculture Workforce Strategy.
The roadmap outlines our vision for the sector. It provides a framework to guide consideration of the strategy findings and recommendations.
The Agriculture 2030 package, announced in the 2021-2022 Budget, responds to several of the recommendations of the strategy. The $29 million invested over 4 years in human capital initiatives aims to improve agricultural and employment opportunities in the medium-to-longer term.
We released the Australian Government Response to the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy in December 2021.
Download
| Document | Pages | File size |
|---|---|---|
| National Agricultural Workforce Strategy PDF | 327 | 5.1 MB |
| National Agricultural Workforce Strategy DOCX | 327 | 8.4 MB |
| Australian Government Roadmap PDF | 14 | 5.5 MB |
| Australian Government Roadmap DOCX | 14 | 466 KB |
If you have difficulty accessing these files, please visit web accessibility.
Committee members
- Mr John Azarias (Chair) – Public policy specialist, NSW
- Professor Ruth Nettle (Deputy Chair) – Leader of Rural Innovation Research Group, University of Melbourne, VIC
- Mr John Williams (Deputy Chair) – Former NSW Senator, NSW
- Mr Will Barton – CEO of Gundagai Meat Processors, NSW
- Industry Professor Hermione Parsons – Director of the Institute for Supply Chain and Logistics, Deakin University, VIC
- Mr Geoff Richards – Managing Director of Richgro Garden products and former Chair of Agrifood Skills Australia, WA
- Dr Angeline Achariya – Executive Director of Innovation and Growth at Simplot Australia, VIC
- Ms Julie Aldous – Rural educator, VIC
- Associate Professor Jacki Schirmer – Health Research Institute and the Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, ACT
- Mr Robert Hinrichsen – Owner/Director of Kalfresh, QLD
- Mr Clayton Nelson – Senior Executive at Austral Fisheries, WA