'Food producers are the most important people in the world today'—not my statement, but one that needs to be believed by food producers, governments and their agencies. Federal and state governments have been very vocal about their plans to double food production over the next decade or two.
In order to achieve this goal, it is critical that educational institutions recruit more students to agricultural studies.
Demand for agriculture graduates today is three or four times more than the number of graduate positions being made available each year. Why the disparity when demand is so great?
It seems that educational institutions base their enrolment numbers on the number of job advertisements for agricultural graduates. Fair enough, except that they only consider advertisements in major city daily newspapers, and ignore the electronic media and the rural press—where most of the jobs are advertised!
Address issues
If governments are serious about doubling food production and in helping to feed Asia, they should support the relevant agencies that can make it happen; and address this question: what issues need to be resolved to allow it to happen?
As an example, governments should assist those agencies and institutions that provide the relevant science needed to gain and maintain market access for Australian exports.
Changing awareness
The era of the ‘celebrity chef’ has heightened the public’s awareness of food and those who prepare it.
It is unfortunate that while food preparation and presentation have become so popular, the public remain largely ignorant of where our food comes from, how cleanly it is produced, how effective our quality assurance programs are, and how efficiently water is used to produce what is presented on the plate.
Cherry producers alone will not be able to drive change, and change will not happen by itself. Perhaps it is time that Australian horticultural producers joined forces to help make change happen.
What do you think? Food for thought.
See this article in the February 2013 Tree Fruit
