TERTIARY agricultural education in the 21st century needs to equip graduates with the
appropriate skills to embrace productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability.
According to University of WA (UWA) vice-chancellor Winthrop Professor Alan Robson, to be a competent agriculturist requires not only knowledge of plant and animal biology, but also soil physics and chemistry, environmental science and management, agricultural business and marketing, communications skills, computer science and other information technologies.
Addressing the UWA Institute of Agriculture’s fourth annual industry forum ‘Agriculture Education for the Future’ on the subject of training future agricultural professionals, he said modern tertiary agricultural education needed to provide a strategic training pathway for capacity building for the agriculture and food sectors.
“As educators, we must produce graduates with scientific, management and communication skills, but who also understand regional and global commercial and environmental realities,” he said.
“While skills of integration have become as valuable as skills of analysis and reductionism, mathematical and computational skills are increasingly important where meaningful integration relies on mathematical and bio-physical modelling.
“It is therefore vital that we highlight, in a positive, understandable way, how agricultural science and technology is keeping us at the forefront of world innovation and discovery,” Professor Robson said.
UWA, for example, strongly contributed to the international investigation of climate change, from monitoring sheep methane output to decreasing the amount of nitrous oxide in the soil.
UWA’s Institute of Agriculture was the only institution in Australia to receive funding in December last year from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as part of the Climate Change Research Program for research into all three greenhouse gas areas – methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.
Originally from Southern Cross and now from Arthur River, under-graduate student Sarah Panizza, who is doing a double degree in agricultural science and commerce, said studying agricultural science at UWA helped her 'think outside the square'.
“Also, UWA Institute of Agriculture has exposed me to parts of the faculty beyond just academics and this has been an amazing opportunity,” Ms Panizza said.
“I’m excited about choosing an interesting topic for my fourth year project.”
Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) director general Rob Delane, an UWA agricultural science graduate and post-graduate, addressed the forum and said global challenges facing agriculture included skills shortage, population growth, food production and climate change.
“To meet some of these challenges we need to identify the changes that will help profit, job creation and wealth,” he said.
“Young people in agriculture today need diverse skills and adaptability and there is a greater demand for more educated people to give us an international competitive advantage.”
“Some of the skills are communication, technical, analytical, farm management and, importantly for today’s forum, the ability to apply, in a practical sense, the science,” he said.
Coorow grain grower Rod Birch of Catalina Farms said today's successful broadacre farmers engaged with a range of professionals with diverse skill sets to help profitably and sustainably direct and manage what were often multi-million-dollar businesses.
“We tap into specialists to access the best possible advice for financial planning, accounting, grain trading, agronomy and marketing,” Mr Birch said.
“Effectively, the modern farmer no longer ‘farms in isolation’ and we also now enjoy the benefits of internet access for when we need immediate answers or information.
“I like the direction UWA is taking its Institute of Agriculture and Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and believe WA should have only one world class tertiary level agricultural science degree course and that should be at UWA, which plans to produce more flexible graduates who will be of even greater value to our farm businesses.”
Enrolments in UWA’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences surged almost 10 per cent last year, to top off a half-decade of growth that saw numbers swell to about 700 full-time students.
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