Annabelle Subtil is a third generation merino and beef farmer on Omarama Station where she also runs a farm stay business. In addition, Annabelle is a Director on the board of Growing Future Farmers, an intiative started by farmers, for farmers, focused on nurturing quality people into the agribusiness sector. With less than 3% of school leavers going on to study agriculture, and only a proportion of them choosing to enter the sheep, beef and deer sectors, Growing Future Farmers (GFF) is taking a proactive approach to attracting and training young people interested in working within the sector, giving them quality learning opportunities to lead to meaningful employment in the agricultural sector.
When it comes to what sustainability means to her, Annabelle is quick to acknowledge the opportunity she has been given to farm at Omarama Station by her parents. For Annabelle, her experience on a multi-generational farm means for her that sustainability is about ‘recognising the previous generations and what they’ve done, and then paying it forward to the future generations, leaving the property as a viable business’. Another key word for Annabelle in how she described sustainability was that of responsibilites, whether it be environmental, economic or social. Annabelle’s meaning of sustainability is a beautifully succinct way to view sustainability, which acknowledges the passing of responsbility from generation to generation, but also that while we must continue to progress forward, we cannot do that without recognising and reflecting on the contributions of our forebears.
Growing Future Farmers
Growing Future Farmers began as an initiative to encourage young people into the agriculture sector. It is a two-year, zero fees, programme where students live and work on farm, while obtaining both practical and academic qualifications. Four days a week students are on farm gaining practical workplace training and development, and on Fridays they get together via zoom or in regional hubs for activties such as classroom learning and dog training. The students are taken under the wing of Farm Trainers who have shown a desire to educate and train those up and coming in the agricultural sector, providing them with the practical experience and learning in an on farm environment. In addition to Farm Trainers, students are also supported by Regional Liason Managers for pastoral care, which Annabelle states is a huge part of the programme as it is the first time many of these students have left home. At the end of the two-year period, students have obtained NZQA Primary Industries Level 2 and 3, Pre-employment skills Level 3, and the Certificate in Agricultural Food and Fibre Level 3, as well as a vast range of practical skills obtained while living on farm such as vehicle traning, fencing, shearing, chainsaw courses and much more. Another key part of the programme is that students get to train a couple of working dogs for themselves over the two-years.
“Richard and I had often talked about how there was a real need for this sort of thing in the South Island for young people to get into agriculture. There were several places in the North Island that already exist, and they’ve always been oversubscribed and quite hard to get into. So, when I was approached by GFF to want to join the board, it was a pretty easy decision as it was something that we, that I had been talking about for quite a few years beforehand…
It’s getting the practical skills that are aligned with their classroom learning and lots of training courses up front, so, when that’s finished, they hit the ground running for their first job into agriculture, sheep, and beef industry.”
The importance of education and pathways
What rings through in Annabelle’s responses is that education and provision of pathways to get people involved in agriculture is of prime importance to her, which is reinforced by SDG #4: Quality Education, being the SDG she feels most aligned to. Target 4.4 under SDG #4 seeks to substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship, which is something that GFF is really targeting in their approach.
“It’s not just about getting people involved, but also showing them that there is a career pathway there for them”, says Annabelle, and while many may lean towards going down the shepherding route, there are so many options open to the graduates of GFF such as fencing contracting, working for contractors, for vets and so on.
The number of students joining the GFF programme is growing year on year, and Annabelle states the importance of leading the training ourselves because if we don’t, no one has done it for us, so it is of real importance to become engaged in this space to ensure capable and engaged people are continuing to enter the food and fibre sector.
“We desperately need to attract more capable young people into our sector and train them. We’ve also learned over the years that farming can’t be taught in the classroom, so GFF, as I said before, is employer-led grassroots up alternative.”
“We really need to be targeting young people that don’t necessarily have a farming background but come out of our towns. Because we’re becoming more and more urbanised, so we, you know, we’re looking for young students that just have the right attitude to learning and the enthusiasm to give it a go and then we can help them with the rest. There was a time when it was just OK to tell people to do things, but increasingly we find it’s important to explain the why and the more people understand the why, the more engaged they become in what they’re doing. And that, for whatever reason, there seems to be such a shortage of people in every industry, so if we’re not making agriculture attractive with a career pathway we’re going to miss out.”
Annabelle’s view on the biggest challenge facing the Ag sector, and a practical take home action to help farming businesses contribute to sustainability
For Annabelle, the biggest challenge that she sees facing the Ag sector is that for too long the focus has been on volume not value, and that we really need to change that.
“Despite what we think, we don’t feed and clothe the world. Particularly now with the cost of production going up drastically, it’s even more important that we focus on the ethical production of high quality and therefore more valuable outputs. So, we want to go for quality over quantity… And I guess we’re lucky here, we’ve always done quite a lot of value adds through direct supply contracts. It’s really rewarding, actually seeing where your product ends up, rather than just seeing it leaving the farm gate and having no idea where it ends up.”
And this has a positive flow on for supplier and consumer.
“… it’s a two-way thing. They understand our business more and we understand their business more. And you know we all go through our ups and downs and if we can help each other through those ups and downs then we’re likely to survive longer and build better relationships.”
When it comes to practical on farm action towards sustainability, Annabelle can’t go past the recommendation of taking on a Growing Future Farmers student.
“Invest in your own future by investing in the next generation”.
Keen to apply for the 2024 GFF programme as a student or farm trainer?
– Applications open on 1st June 2023 and close on 1st September 2024.
– Farm Trainer and Student Information Open Days are also running across the country in June and July
– Head to https://www.growingfuturefarmers.co.nz/ for more information
Listen to Annabelle’s podcast episode here: