NSW Farmers has secured a major victory for regional skills and workforce development, with the NSW Government confirming a three-year, $15 million funding commitment for the AgSkilled program.

NSW Farmers Young Farmer Council chair, Jess Ryan, welcomed the announcement adding it was great to see the NSW Government listening to farmers on this initiative.

“This is a  win for NSW Farmers and for every young person and worker looking to build practical skills in agriculture,” Ms Ryan said.

“For three years we’ve been stuck in stop-start, annual funding that makes it hard for training providers to innovate, develop new content, or even keep courses running when farmers actually have time to attend, especially through winter.”

AgSkilled is an existing industry-led program that enables access to local training opportunities for agricultural workers to participate in micro-courses that build new skills. Opportunities to get job-ready skills and credentials locally can be few and far between and longer-term certainty for this program has been essential to helping attract, retain and develop the workforce as the face of agriculture continued to change.

“Farm businesses are adopting new technology and new ways of working. We need a training system that keeps up, so people can pick up micro-skills quickly and keep productivity moving in the right direction,” Ms Ryan said.

“Funding certainty for successful initiatives like AgSkilled are critical if we want to achieve the objectives of the NSW Government’s new Primary Industries Workforce Strategy.”

NSW Farmers’ said the move also recognised a key weakness the organisation had raised with the previous funding model: Course schedules shutting down and restarting around the winter period, precisely when many producers could take time off-farm to upskill.

The three-year commitment kept funding at the current level, but gave providers the certainty to plan ahead, expand delivery and develop new courses, including stronger opportunities for the livestock sector in addition to the plant industries.