Why National Farming Education Australia?

by Thomas Panna

National Farming Education Australia was founded out of personal frustration and challenges that we were dealing with in the industry.

The biggest problem the industry faces stems from not having skilled labour available to us. Talking to friends and colleagues, David Zahlan of Alexanders Fruit Market, shared my view. This "planted the seed" to start up National Farming Education Australia and the Green Card program.

The Next Stage

There's accessibility to labour, but not accessibility to skilled labour. One of the ideas that frequently came up was, "how do I get more productivity out of my shed? With the challenge that COVID-19 restrictions pose, how and what can I do to be able to cover ourselves so that we're not exposed to, one; not be able to pick the crop and, two; not be able to pack it?"

18 months ago, we realistically predicted that the COVID issue would not be resolved within a matter of months. It was on us to come up with those solutions to secure ourselves as a business.

As our thinking evolved and we developed the concept and continued to challenge even our own thought process, at times, we realised that this is actually something that's beneficial to the industry sector.

It's beneficial to our nation on many levels by being able to bring in skilled labour and skilled working forces.

It ticked a lot of boxes for us to continue to emphasise and focus on. The development of it really came down to the challenges of skilled labour, but also the implementation of industry standards and practises. These practices are updated annually through supermarket supply chains and government directives.

The Seasonal Workforce Problem

Farmers rely on contractors to outsource the work for probably 95% of what they do in the industry. About five to ten percent of farming workforce is employed by the business, but generally that's upper management roles and farm managers or tractor drivers, truck drivers, sales managers, administration, and so on.

The actual hard labour of the industry coming down from picking and packing. It's all external. This is where there's been so much controversy to the industry. When a farmer outsources a contractor to supply them with skilled labour, that contractor generally tends to then outsource to another contractor, and so it continues.

It's stigmatised the industry to have this unethical process and exploitation of seasonal and international workers where they're not receiving an industry standard payment.

The NFEA Solution

So we wanted to be able to have something that international workers and Australian workers within our industry can actually apply for jobs and come in as a skilled worker, as opposed to being exposed to the life that is out there as an unskilled worker in the industry.

Establishing NFEA was about tidying it up and cleaning up the industry as opposed to how it's currently operated. There's been a lot of media attention around it over the last few years. It's a huge area that government and industry is looking at; but how do we come up with the solution to minimise this risk and the stigmatisation?

Unfortunately it hasn't been achieved as yet.

Within 12 months from now we're hoping that what we can achieve is the implementation of a new standard across our industry that is fair and equal to all and open up opportunities and pipelines for international workers to be able to come over and have the opportunity to work in a great industry, great country, and earn some really good money.

Best of all, farmers will have peace of mind knowing their workers have the right skills before they set foot on the farm.

It's our goal to ensure NFEA is the agricultural staffing solution of the future.