What your careers teacher didn’t tell you about agriculture

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” – so said Confucius, philosopher, teacher and politician. A quote based, presumably, on the expectation of staying in the same role for decades, which is increasingly unlikely these days.

Attracting great people

At a recent discussion dinner in Norwich hosted by the Royal Society, the topic of lifelong career progression and attracting great people into the industry inevitably came up. After the all-too-predictable sharing of war stories around recruitment difficulties, an interesting commonality emerged.

Every business leader round the table shared their willingness to help inspire and engage early career individuals – and bemoaned the lack of opportunities for them to do so.

In fairness, we all know the time pressures that schools, Further Education Colleges and Universities are under,and that it takes additional energy and resource to set up career mentoring and extra curricula opportunities.

But repeated offers by businesses to work with schools, Colleges and even Universities were often not taken up.

Surely a trick is being missed here somewhere?

There are a number of great organisations which exist in the UK to help businesses engage with the education system, but they are often either charities or not-for-profit. Yet they provide opportunities for those starting their career to encounter potential role models, or even eliminate potential career options as a result learning a little more about the reality.

One person round the table at that dinner actually reflected that after experiencing lack-lustre careers support at school, their most defining opportunity came from meeting someone in business that they aspired to be.

So people starting out in their career need to meet engaging people who are relatable, doing jobs that seem achievable as a career goal.

Portfolio careers

And its not just those early in their career. Conventional wisdom has it that career decisions are made very early in life, hence the drive to engage schools – even at primary level.

But with the increased flexibility of modern careers – sorry, Confucius – there is need to engage, and keep engaging throughout the life course as people move between jobs and even sectors.

The pandemic was a driver of worker flexibility, with massive recruitment in some industries, and a dramatic decline in others. Adaptability is the order of the day now, as the world moves forward and work-places- and their staff – become more flexible and agile.

Diversity brings new perspectives

The world of agri-food is a great repository of a broad church of skills, from science PhDs to experienced practitioners on-farm, data scientists, supply chain and logistics and expert advisors. And more.

Although we don’t do “skills and schools” activities at Agri-TechE , in our modest way, our Early Careers Innovators’ Forum (ECIF) helps to broaden the network and perspectives of those starting their career in the industry (and you don’t have to be ‘young’ to join us!).

ECIF careers afternoon

Coming up, we have a Careers Afternoon at the Norfolk Showground, where you will meet people from across the network looking at agricultural engineering, investment, agronomy, research and others.

We also host site visits to our members and others – join us to visit Germains Seed Technologies to learn more about pelleting, priming and polymers – with a sprinkling of sugar!

And who knows, you may never work a day in your life again…

Agri-TechE ’s Early Career Innovators’ Forum is kindly sponsored by the Morley Agricultural Foundation. To receive the ECIF newsletter, you can sign up here.